Nintendo Reports a Loss of $457 Million, 3DS and Wii U Both Fall Short

[Lady Lilith]

http://kotaku.com/nintendo-reports-a-loss-of-457-million-3ds-and-wii-u-1572841102

 

 

 

Nintendo has published their numbers for the most recent financial year, and sadly, they're not doing all that well.

The company ended up with an operating loss of 46.4 billion yen, or $457 million, for the fiscal year ending in March, managing to move 590,000 3DS units and 310,000 Wii U units in the last quarter (ie. the first three months of 2014). Total lifetime sales for the 3DS and the Wii U are now at 43.33 million units and 6.17 million units, respectively. The Wii U's performance is mentioned by the report as a contributing factor to Nintendo's loss of profits: 

The global sales of the “Wii U” hardware and software [for the fiscal year] reached only 2.72 million and 18.86 million units respectively... The "Wii U" hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo's profits owing mainly to its markdown in the United States and Europe, and unit sales of software, which has high profit margins, did not grow sufficiently.

On the other hand, the 3DS is doing relatively well, with 12.24 million units of hardware and 67.89 million units of software sold during the fiscal year—though neither console managed to hit January's expected sales numbers for hardware, and in the software department, only the 3DS performed according to expectations.

Nintendo Doesn't Think The Wii U's Selling That Great

Today, Nintendo released its sales forecasts. The company's financial year ends on March 31,...Read more

To stimulate Wii U sales, the report mentions plans both to increase the number of Nintendo DS games available via the Wii U Virtual Console, and to introduce new software taking advantage of the Wii U Gamepad, which Nintendo considers the system's "most important differentiator." As for the 3DS, Nintendo plans to release more key titles for the handheld in the coming fiscal year, hopefully generating "robust profits."

Consolidated Financial Statements, May 7, 2014 [Nintendo]

Notice of Full-Year Financial Forecast Differences with its Results [Nintendo]

 

It's sad, but Nintendo doesn't really have a clue anymore.  Sure, they have rare bouts of genius with stuff like Donkey Kong TF and Kirby Triple Deluxe, but they've generally gone downhill since the N64, I think.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Lilith

[PSNP is crap i left]

Wow, they've suffered some pretty heavy losses. I hope everything goes well for Nintendo with Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire & Smash Bros. 4. But we'll see.

Edited May 8, 2014 by King Zidane

[FluffyAssassin64]

Edited May 8, 2014 by FluffyAssassin64

[Dark_Tooth69]

I hope they can get back on their feet soon. I disagree on them going downhill since the n64 though. The gamecube had some good exclusives (Super Smash Bros Melee, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin, Eternal Darkness, Zelda Wind Waker) and the WII had some pretty good ones too (Punch-Out!, MadWorld, Wario Land Shake It, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Super Mario Galaxy 1/2, Zelda Skyward Sword).

 

The WiiU has potential, but like you said before they don't really have a clue. 

Edited May 8, 2014 by Dark_Tooth69

[Wavergray]

While I do agree that Nintendo doesn't really have a clue anymore, I have to disagree with the going downhill since the N64. In terms of overall quality the Gamecube was the best system Nintendo has made since the SNES, it had a good mix of first-party and third-party exclusives, a lot of obscure games that you could only play on it, and most of the ports were equal to or better than the other version.

 

If you think about it most of the best sellers for the Wii, WiiU and 3DS are remakes, sequels, or are based heavily on Gamecube games.

Edited May 8, 2014 by soultaker655

[KitsuneChaos]

Too much is riding on the success of Smash Bros and not much else. Sure, they announced Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire remakes for the 3DS, but that won't push the kind of numbers they need -- and a November release isn't helping much for this quarter.

If anything, until they figure out another medium for success, they're just going to wind up falling victim to the royalties they're continuing to pay on lost court cases pertaining to their current hardware.

[TalynnStrike]

They haven't went downhill. The Gamecube and the Wii were not bad at all nor is the WiiU. I still see plenty of Nintendo only exclusives that are kinda nice. 

 

 

If you think about it most of the best sellers for the Wii, WiiU and 3DS are remakes, sequels, or are based heavily on Gamecube games.

 

 

Isn't that pretty much any game company nowadays? Look at the current trend of Xbox one and PS4. Port after port after port after port. Or Remake after remake after remake after remake.

 

While I do agree that Nintendo doesn't really have a clue anymore,

 

 

Being the 1st company out with 3d handheld isn't, to me, going downhill. 

 

Too much is riding on the success of Smash Bros and not much else. Sure, they announced Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire remakes for the 3DS, but that won't push the kind of numbers they need -- and a November release isn't helping much for this quarter.

If anything, until they figure out another medium for success, they're just going to wind up falling victim to the royalties they're continuing to pay on lost court cases pertaining to their current hardware.

It's only 9.80 cents per 3ds sold. 

 

Those lawsuits are bogus anyway. I read over the newest lawsuit. Multi screen blah blah. Ya know the Vita does the same thing. Multi Screen from PS4 to Vita. So the losers gonna sue Sony next?

 

Nintendo is also stating a heavy loss due to the fact of the Wii U being marked down way ahead of schedule. The numbers are there just not the money.

[Tomato]

Most of their games do not target an older audience most people played mario/donkey kong early in their life's (like myself) and moved on, sure its nice to replay it again and remember but I am not buying your console for just that purpose when everything else runs better on another platform, and now with these remakes of pokemon announced just sounds like they are running out of ideas at least they can survive of the 3DS for a while.

Edited May 8, 2014 by Ellie

[stitchesnscars]

They haven't went downhill. The Gamecube and the Wii were not bad at all nor is the WiiU. I still see plenty of Nintendo only exclusives that are kinda nice. 

 

Isn't that pretty much any game company nowadays? Look at the current trend of Xbox one and PS4. Port after port after port after port. Or Remake after remake after remake after remake.

 

Being the 1st company out with 3d handheld isn't, to me, going downhill. 

 

It's only 9.80 cents per 3ds sold. 

 

Those lawsuits are bogus anyway. I read over the newest lawsuit. Multi screen blah blah. Ya know the Vita does the same thing. Multi Screen from PS4 to Vita. So the losers gonna sue Sony next?

 

Nintendo is also stating a heavy loss due to the fact of the Wii U being marked down way ahead of schedule. The numbers are there just not the money.

Strictly speaking for the console race yes they have gone down, look at what they projected to sell vs what they actually sold, its not good. The wii U had a year head start and is still 3rd in the console race. The DS is a powerhouse but they seem to have lost their way in the console market which is where they got their start. Not sure how old you are but im 31 and they are no where close to what they were in the glory days of the 90's, they have seriously lost their way.

 

The drop off did start in the 64 era, which is sad considering the strong start it had (Mario 64, GoldenEye, Ocarina of time). 3rd party started to leave around this time

 

The gamecube had some good titles but the whole "lets put back packs on the mario brother's" games, never lived up to Mario 64 (Metroid Prime, Zelda, and Smash Melee were phenomenal).  The  GC controller also turned a lot of people away from the console, which seems to be a recurring theme for them nowadays.  The PS2 and Xbox had giants like Halo and little games like GTA, we were also seeing a lot more console oriented online gaming which Nintendo seemed to have collectively ignore for whatever reason.

 

The wii was a successful console (in the beginning)  because of the motion control . A good portion of wii buyers were casual gamers (or Mothers who bought it for wii fit) and it eventually became the worlds cheapest Netflix box (at the end of its life). Sure you had your reliable Zelda first party games but after the first couple years of the wii success closely resembled rockband/guitar hero. One of the biggest things that drove me nuts about the wii was that the marketing campaign was "Wii want to play" but the online portion was terrible, were they expecting us to go over someone else's house  for every game session?

[KingCuervo88]

they make so much more money if their games were available for playstation and xbox.... mario party on PS3/PS4? sign me up...

[Wavergray]

They haven't went downhill. The Gamecube and the Wii were not bad at all nor is the WiiU. I still see plenty of Nintendo only exclusives that are kinda nice.

The Gamecube was a great system overall, but the Wii wasn't. Sure they sold a ton of them, but at the end of the Wii's lifespan it only had about 40 noteworthy games. Most of the ports were not only bad, but sometime they where entirely different games under the same name. It had very few third-party exclusives and as the years went by it's third-party support was started to disappear. IMO one of the main reasons the WiiU is doing so poorly right now is due to how the Wii's lifespan ended.   

 

Isn't that pretty much any game company nowadays? Look at the current trend of Xbox one and PS4. Port after port after port after port. Or Remake after remake after remake after remake.

True, but those game companies aren't a hardware manufacturer that needs games on their main home console. The fact that Nintendo has to go to the nostalgia well almost every time just to make some form of profit on their hardware and the fact they can't get the other game companies to release those ports and remake on their hardware at the same level as the PS3/4 and Xbox360/One is a huge problem.

 

Being the 1st company out with 3d handheld isn't, to me, going downhill.

The fact that they released the 2DS shows that they realized the 3D part of the handheld was a misstep. Now I'm not saying the 3DS is a bad handheld, in fact beside the 3D stuff I think the 3DS it the best handheld out right now. It's almost even with the Gamecube in terms of power and it could play every game from all their handhelds and every game from the NES to N64 with little to no problem if they let it.

The fact that Nintendo didn't copy and paste the entirety of the Wii's virtual console and Wiiware to the 3DS has mystified me to this day.

[TalynnStrike]

Strictly speaking for the console race yes they have gone down, look at what they projected to sell vs what they actually sold, its not good. The wii U had a year head start and is still 3rd in the console race. The DS is a powerhouse but they seem to have lost their way in the console market which is where they got their start. Not sure how old you are but im 31 and they are no where close to what they were in the glory days of the 90's, they have seriously lost their way.

 

The drop off did start in the 64 era, which is sad considering the strong start it had (Mario 64, GoldenEye, Ocarina of time). 3rd party started to leave around this time

 

The gamecube had some good titles but the whole "lets put back packs on the mario brother's" games, never lived up to Mario 64 (Metroid Prime, Zelda, and Smash Melee were phenomenal).  The  GC controller also turned a lot of people away from the console, which seems to be a recurring theme for them nowadays.  The PS2 and Xbox had giants like Halo and little games like GTA, we were also seeing a lot more console oriented online gaming which Nintendo seemed to have collectively ignore for whatever reason.

 

The wii was a successful console (in the beginning)  because of the motion control . A good portion of wii buyers were casual gamers (or Mothers who bought it for wii fit) and it eventually became the worlds cheapest Netflix box (at the end of its life). Sure you had your reliable Zelda first party games but after the first couple years of the wii success closely resembled rockband/guitar hero. One of the biggest things that drove me nuts about the wii was that the marketing campaign was "Wii want to play" but the online portion was terrible, were they expecting us to go over someone else's house  for every game session?

Almost 40. I do remember Nintendo's funner days, if you could call it that? idk heh. Well they have said that recently their consoles just aren't doing it anymore. I don't blame their systems though. They are pretty decent, different. Nintendo's always been different. Hell look at the Playstation. It wouldn't even be around right now had Nintendo went with disc's on the N64. Well it may be around, possibly different name? or not as soon as it came out. 

 

I do agree with everything you say though. I think what's doing in Nintendo the most on the console wars is they aren't getting into the future. As in. Most of these newer generation of gamers want graphics, graphics, graphics. They want the same ole cheesey NFS, or CoD, or Halo games. They do have alot of "Kiddie" Games. Which as you can tell, especially with sites like these, that have leaderboards, or amount of owners of a game. If the graphics aren't super duper, not to many ppl have the game. 

The fact that they released the 2DS shows that they realized the 3D part of the handheld was a misstep. Now I'm not saying the 3DS is a bad handheld, in fact beside the 3D stuff I think the 3DS it the best handheld out right now. It's almost even with the Gamecube in terms of power and it could play every game from all their handhelds and every game from the NES to N64 with little to no problem if they let it.

The fact that Nintendo didn't copy and paste the entirety of the Wii's virtual console and Wiiware to the 3DS has mystified me to this day.

Well being sued could have had an impact on the 2ds being made. Not sure on that though. Timeline seems right though. 

 

  

 

True, but those game companies aren't a hardware manufacturer that needs games on their main home console. The fact that Nintendo has to go to the nostalgia well almost every time just to make some form of profit on their hardware and the fact they can't get the other game companies to release those ports and remake on their hardware at the same level as the PS3/4 and Xbox360/One is a huge problem.

 

 

I was actually refering to Microsoft and Sony. now i'm not keeping track of Microsoft but i do know when one thinks of Xbox only one game comes to mind Halo. Atleast with Nintendo more than that comes to mind. As for Sony, Not liking their track record atm with their own games. I swear everything lately that's been released by them is either a port of a PS3 game on the Vita or Port of a PS3 game to PS4. 

 

I do get what you are saying though. I'm just looking at it from all ends. Especially since i remember when this same thing happened to Sega and what happened after that. Man I hope Nintendo don't decide to pull the plug or anything. I miss Sega consoles. Those things are awesome. Still have em all too. 

 

As for 3rd party support. I swear Capcom and Square Enix are still behind them 100%. Which both of those companies originally started with them and they still do exclusives for Nintendo. Which tbh as long as Capcom and Square are supporting Nintendo i don't forsee anything going bad. 

[DarkStar83x]

they make so much more money if their games were available for playstation and xbox.... mario party on PS3/PS4? sign me up...

They've said themselves it's not likely to happen.

 

I love Nintendo and Kirby Triple Deluxe is one of the most fun games I've played on 3DS. I also play the 3DS more than Vita since the games are quite fun. That being said, they've definitely seen better days. So many games I thought would move Wii U didn't, so I'm not getting my hopes up that SSB will be the one. I'm getting it on 3DS day 1 and then asking for the Wii U version for Christmas.

 

I do think OmegaRuby and Alpha Sapphire will move some units.

Edited May 8, 2014 by DarkStar83x