In a new earnings release, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata outlined how his company has reduced its Wii U sales projections from 9 million to 2.8 million units by the end of March. In addition to its home console’s numbers being downsized, 3DS sales projections were trimmed down from 18 million to 13.5 million units.
Initially Nintendo was forecasting a net profit of 55 billion yen, however the company now expects to incur a loss of 25 billion yen instead. Despite heavy marketing, holiday bundles and price cuts, Iwata acknowledged that Wii U sales fail short by a huge margin.
“In particular, sales in the US and European markets in which we entered the year-end sales season with a hardware markdown were significantly lower than our original forecasts, with both hardware and software sales experiencing a huge gap from their targets,” he said.
“In addition, we did not assume at the beginning of the fiscal year that we would perform a markdown for the Wii U hardware in the US and European markets. This was also one of the reasons for lower sales and profit estimates.”
Nintendo’s complete earnings information is expected to release at the end of the month, which should give us a better look at the company’s position. As for its reprojected sales figures, we’ll have to wait until spring time to see if the house that Mario built is able to hit its new goals.
