Nintendo Loss Forecasted Thanks To Weak Wii U Sales

Nintendo has been struggling over the last few years to compete in the gaming hardware and software market. The company did well with the original Nintendo Wii the first several years it was available and when the novelty of its control system wore off, sales declined rapidly. Sales of the Nintendo Wii U never took off in the way that the gaming firm had hoped.

Nintendo had a bright spot to report earlier this month with its numbers showing that the Nintendo 3DS portable game console had seen a significant sales uptick in 2013. The numbers showed that the sales of games for the system jumped 45% during 2013 along with record hardware numbers for the system.

The success of the Nintendo 3DS and its software last year wasn't enough to turn Nintendo's fortunes around. Nintendo has issued a warning that its profits will be weaker than expected its current financial year. Nintendo has announced that it expects to post an operating loss of $335 million (35 billion yen) for the financial year ending on March 31, 2014.

The massive loss is a marked contrast to the profit that Nintendo had expected of 100 billion yen for the financial year. Nintendo says that weaker than expected sales during the holiday season are the key reason for the downgrade. Nintendo also had weak software sales that it blames on the weaker than expected hardware sales.

SOURCE: BBC