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| We hope Nintendo does a better job of change than Nokia |
A report over at GamesIndustry.biz paints a sorry statistic for Nintendo’s Wii U console; globally it has shifted only 160,000 units over the past three months.
Japan was the strongest market in relative terms for the console, selling 90,000 units there. The company sold 60,000 units in the US in the same period, and a truly woeful 10,000 units across both Europe and Australia.
This is less than half the number of sales in the previous three months (390,000 units). What’s worse is while that period saw 13.42 million software sales, the last three months has produced just 1.3 million software sales.
Elsewhere in Nintendo’s business the signs are more positive. Or, in other words, the 3DS is saving the company from serious trouble. For the past financial year quarter Nintendo’s sales hit a net profit of ¥8.6 billion ($88m USD). This compares to a loss of ¥17.2 billion last year on a YOY basis. Operationally the company still recorded a loss, though. Marketing and R & D costs associated with the Wii U resulted in a small operating loss of ¥4.9 billion.
Nintendo apparently is still projecting full-year sales of nine million Wii Us. Given that the Wii outsold the Wii U in this quarter (210,000 units), that’s going to be an interesting challenge for the House of Mario.
