Nintendo Sells 460,000 Wii U Consoles In Last Six Months

Early in the life of console gaming, Nintendo was the game console to own. The Nintendo was so popular that many other companies stepped into the market with consoles with their own such as Sega, Microsoft, and later Sony. Nintendo did okay with its original Wii, but so far the Nintendo Wii U has been a disappointment for gamers and Nintendo.

We mentioned back in July that Nintendo had only sold about 160,000 units in the previous quarter. Information from Nintendo has surfaced showing that in the last six months Nintendo has sold less than 500,000 Wii U consoles. That is despite the fact that it has been reducing the price of the console and offering new bundles.

The exact number of Nintendo Wii U console sold in the six months that ended on September 30 was 460,000 units. Nintendo reportedly moved 6.3 million pieces of software for console. The numbers do show a significant uptick compared to that 160,000 units sold in Q1, but Nintendo has be disappointed.

The lackluster sales of the Nintendo Wii U persist despite the launch of first party titles only available on the console such as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Walker HD and Pikmin 3. The results of the lackluster sales is that the Nintendo Wii U hardware had a negative impact on Nintendo's profits. Nintendo reported an operating loss of $236.2 million attributed in part to "advertising activities" for the game console and R&D efforts for new software.

Nintendo was able to turn a gross profit of $631.4 million overall. Am I the only one that would like to see Nintendo stop fooling around with unique controls to try and sell hardware and software and come out with a high-end, high-performance game console that might actually be of interest to gamers?

SOURCE: GamesIndustry