Slow Wii U Sales Still A Thorn In Nintendo’s Side

Sales of the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U platforms did not reach their projected levels, and as a result, Nintendo’s net sales took a dive during the fiscal year ended March 31st, 2014, the company announced today.

Back in January, Nintendo lowered their Nintendo 3DS sales forecast from 18 million to 13.5 million by the end of March 2014. Unfortunately, they only managed to move 12.24 million 3DS units by that point.

Meanwhile, their Wii U forecast was lowered from 9 million units to 2.8 million units, but the company only managed to move 2.72 Wii U consoles by the end of March 2014. Wii U software missed its mark as well. Instead of moving 19 million units of Wii U software, Nintendo only managed 18.86 million.

As a result, Nintendo posted net sales of 571.7 billion yen and losses of 23.2 billion yen, compared to profits of 7.1 billion yen last year.

On a brighter note, Nintendo 3DS hardware sales have reached 43.33 million units worldwide, and Nintendo say that the platform represents a large enough userbase upon which to expand software sales, moving forward. The company cited strong sales of Pokémon X/Y, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and other 3DS games as points of note. Going forward, Nintendo say that they will strive to generate “robust profits” from the Nintendo 3DS, by releasing key titles throughout the next year.

Meanwhile, in the case of the Wii U, Nintendo pointed to the Wii U GamePad’s NFC functionality as part of their strategy. Details on this front are expected at E3 this year. The company also pointed to Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8 as titles that it hopes will stimulate its Wii U business, alongside the Nintendo eShop and the release of Nintendo DS games for the Wii U Virtual Console.

For the fiscal year ahead, Nintendo are projecting net sales of 590 billion yen and profits of 20 billion yen. The company hopes to sell 12 million Nintendo 3DS systems between April 1st, 2014 and March 31st, 2015. Meanwhile, Nintendo hope to sell 3.6 million Wii U consoles during the same period.