14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher and hardware developer Nintendo says that it is now expecting to sell less Wii U home consoles and 3DS handhelds during the current fiscal year, which is set to end of March 31, but the company also says that it will increase its overall income.
According to a financial briefing quoted by GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo now wants to sell 4 million Wii U devices for the current fiscal year, which is quite a decline when compared to the original sales estimate of 5.5 million pieces of hardware.
The company says that by December 31 of 2012, is managed to move 3.3 million Wii U consoles to retailers, with 3.06 million of them confirmed as sold.
The sales decline is also expected to hit the 3DS handheld, which is now expected to sell about 15 million units, a big drop compared to the initial figure of 17.5 million.
Nintendo also expected to sell a smaller number of normal DS devices, about 2.3 million of them.
The company says that the Wii U is selling worse than its predecessor, which has managed to sell 3.53 million units during the nine-month period that was tracked.
In the video game department, the best performers for the Japanese company were New Super Mario Bros U, with sales of 2.01 million since launch, and Nintendo Land, which managed to deliver 2.33 million copies to gamers.
Despite the smaller projected sales, Nintendo believes that its full fiscal year income will increase and has also revealed a smaller operating loss than at the same point during 2012.
Last year, Nintendo posted a loss for the first time in the company’s history and the company needs to increase the appeal of the Wii U in order to generate the sales required to move into the black during 2013.