If things for Nintendo weren't bad before, they certainly are now. The company has slashed its projections for the number of Wii U consoles and 3DS handheld devices it expects to sell by the end of the financial year in March.
The news comes following an earnings release in which presient Satoru Iwata explained that the company now expects to sell 2.8 million Wii U consoles by the end of March, down from the original estimates of 9.6 million. Meanwhile, the 3DS projections have also been given a significant decrease down from 18 million to just 13.5 million.
What this means for the company is simply that it was expecting 55 billion yen this financial year and can now only expect less than half of that at 25 billion yen.
According to IGN, Iwata explains that the Wii U is underperforming in western markets despite bundles and price cuts.
"In particular, sales in the US and European markets in which we entered the year-end sales season with a hardware markdown were significantly lower than our original forecast, with both hardware and software sales experiencing a huge gap from their targets," he said. "In addition, we did not assume at the beginning of the fiscal year that we would perform a markdown for the Wii U hardware in the US and European markets. This was also one of the reasons for lower sales and profit estimates."
Clearly the company thought that holiday sales would provide a bigger boon to the device than it did. It was revealed in October that the company had sold under 500,000 Wii Us in six months. This means that by December it would have had to sell 2 million every month to try and hit its original expectations.
What will the future for Nintendo be now? According to The Wall Street Journal, the best course of action for the Japanese gaming giant might be to take some of its beloved characters like Mario and Link and bring them to the world of smartphone and tablet gaming rather than locking them away in consoles that customers aren't willing to buy.
Tell us what you think. What would you suggest that Nintendo do in order to save itself? Comment and share your thoughts on Nintendo's recent expectations cut with us below.
