Nintendo has announced its financial results from the last quarter, with Wii U sales improving to 300,000 compared to the previous quarter’s 160,000. While the Wii U’s price drop to $299.99 clearly helped boost sales, the console is still not doing as well as the company would like and faces an uphill battle with the Sony PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releasing next month in North America. Luckily for Nintendo, the PlayStation 4 won’t be releasing in Japan until February 22, 2014.
Nintendo’s original goal was to sell nine-million Wii U consoles by March 2014, so the company has its work cut out. Software sales for the Wii U are just under 20 million total. Unfortunately, as the company has stated itself, the “Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo’s profits,” especially now that the price has been dropped.
The company’s 3DS and 3DS XL however continues to dominate the market, selling another two million consoles bringing their lifetime total to 35 million. And now that the Nintendo 2DS has been launched along with the new Pokemon X and Pokemon Y games, Nintendo’s handheld consoles should continue to prosper this quarter. It will be interesting to see if the Wii U’s sales continue to improve, with a nice selection of titles coming out this quarter including Super Mario 3D World.
Source: Nintendo Japan
