As you know, today Nintendo released its full fiscal year sales report, stating the company shipped 3.45 million Wii U units as of March 31st. This figure is well below the predicted 4 million the company expected to sell by that time in January. That 4 million number is another adjusted forecast, down from the initial 5.5 million at the end of 2012. To put that in perspective, the Wii U has managed to move around 390,000 units over the past three months, despite several high profile releases such as Lego City: Undercover and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
In the financial statement, Nintendo admits that the console failed to maintain initial sales momentum due to delays for several first-party titles. The company states that it plans to remedy this problem by “releasing key Nintendo titles” over the next half of the year through next year. With those releases, Nintendo believes the Wii U can attain 9 million shipped Wii U units for the next fiscal year, which started April 1,2013 and will end March 31, 2014.
Because of lower than expected profit margins and sales on the Wii U console, Nintendo has restructured its management, giving Satoru Iwata the additional position of Nintendo of America CEO. With just over 7 billion yen in profit this year, Nintendo expects to see 55 billion yen in profit before the end of its next fiscal year.
[via Nintendo]