Following weaker-than-expected sales of their Wii U console and weaker-than-expected sales of the Nintendo 3DS in western markets, Nintendo have reduced their financial targets for the ongoing fiscal year, which is set to end on March 31st, 2014.
Initially, Nintendo expected to sell 18 million units of the Nintendo 3DS from April 2013 to March 2014. That number has been reduced to 13.5 million. Software sales have taken a hit, too, it seems, as Nintendo 3DS was supposed to sell 80 million units of software by the end of March, but Nintendo have cut that estimate to 66 million.
Meanwhile, Wii U is in a significantly worse position. Nintendo told investors that they would sell 9 million units of the Wii U from April 2013 to March 2014, but have slashed that forecast to a mere 2.8 million units. On the software front, the software sales forecast for Wii U has been slashed from 38 million units to 19 million units.
Nintendo say they were unable to boost Nintendo 3DS hardware sales in the west significantly during the end-of-year holiday season. Meanwhile, Wii U sales were up during the holidays, but not enough for Nintendo to be able to hit their forecasts by the end of the fiscal year.
As a result, Nintendo have reduced their expected net income of 55 billion yen to a net loss of 25 billion yen. Meanwhile, instead of posting an operating profit of 100 billion yen, the company expects to post an operating loss of 35 billion yen. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says the company will discuss its short-term and mid-term strategy at its next financial results meeting on January 30th.
