Nintendo misses financial forecast again, posts huge loss

The gaming giant that is Nintendo continues to slide in the financial arena as they take a beating in 2013 and post a massive $230 million loss.

How much longer can this continue? It’s anyones guess as yet again Nintendo has posted a loss, this time for the year ending March 31st (fiscal years are different than actual years, which end of course on December 31st). Even worse, Nintendo announced that not only were Wii U sales once again not there, but even normally reliable 3DS sales slipped in the four quarter timeframe.

In it’s first full 12 months on sale, the Wii U sold just 2.72 million systems. That’s a paltry number, and even worse when you consider that the console sold more than that (3.45 million) in the year 2012, when it had just been on sale for four months. As for the current year, the company has announced that they’re looking for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.6million of consoles to go out the door, which is still a woeful figure, but better by a landslide than what it had done in 2013.

What’s supplying this future turnaround? Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros says Nintendo. Personally, while I love Mario Kart and can definitely see the appeal of Smash Bros, I just can’t imagine that the pair of titles could carry the console to something of a turnabout, even one as relatively small as what’s been talked about.

As for the 3DS, things are definitely rosier there, if not by much The little handheld that could has posted sales hitting the 12.24 million mark, which includes all the different variations of the system out there on shelves. Yes, that’s a pretty great number, but not as great as the 13.95 million 3DS’ that they sold in 2012. What’s more, Nintendo says that they expect the portable to continue to decline and hit somewhere around 12 million in sales for this current fiscal year.

Thought the 3DS has been out for a while and the decline there could be said to be simply because of the console’s age, the Wii U has no such excuse and is getting soundly trounced by both the Xbox One (which has already posted 5 million units sold) and the current market leader, the PS4 (which has moved 7 million). If Nintendo expects the Wii U to try and play any ind of catchup here in 2014, they’re going to need more than just a double dose of Mario.

Personally, I hope we see something truly incredible from them at E3 next month, but I’m not holding my breath.

Source: Games Industry