Nintendo has gone public with its annual financial results and again it seems the veteran games maker has failed to meet the mark – in spite of making its first major console launch since 2006 with the Wii U.
The official numbers were made public today and show that again Nintendo’s overall figures have slumped. The company’s losses for the past year are far greater than were projected with an expected drop of 20,000 million Yen in operating income in actual fact being closer to 36,410 million.
Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata sought a return to profit in 2012, however lacklustre sales of the Wii U have meant only 31.09 million units have been shifted so far worldwide. Again this is a figure much lower than anticipated for such a big launch. Nintendo has apologised for some early issues with the Wii U which was reminiscent of the teething problems with its last product release, the handheld 3DS, and the company has struggled to recoup and reinstate its brand appeal since then. The decline of the Japanese Yen has also caused the losses to be more critical.
The Wii U was launched late last year as the successor to the original Wii and promised a ‘Living Room Revolution’ when announced at the E3 expo in June. The console was indeed innovative and introduced Nintendo gamers to a touchscreen tablet controller which caused quite a bit of head-scratching when revealed and players may have been hesitant to make an early purchase. Nintendo also aimed to broaden its appeal by introducing a social gaming network call ‘Miiverse’ which is the Wii U’s answer to services such as Xbox LIVE and the PlayStation Network.
Alongside announcing its annual figures Nintendo has also announced a number of changes to its Board of Directors as it heads into a crucial new financial year.