From IGN

Luke Karmali wrote:

Nintendo has slashed the number of Wii U and 3DS consoles it expects to sell by the end of the financial year, which has had a knock-on effect on its financial projections.

In an earnings release, president Satoru Iwata explained that the company now expects to sell 2.8 million Wii U consoles by the end of March, down from original estimates of 9 million, while 3DS projections have also been revised downwards from 18 million console sales to 13.5 million.

The knock-on effect of this is that the previous net income projection has been revised from profit to loss. Nintendo was forecasting net profits of 55 billion yen, but is now expecting a net loss of 25 billion yen.

Iwata explains that despite hardware bundles and price cuts for the Wii U in western markets, sales still fell short "by a large margin."

"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 forecasts, 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."

The decision to downgrade sales projections for the Wii U isn't hugely surprising. Though it was projecting massive sales of 9 million consoles, last October it was revealed the company had sold under 500,000 Wii Us in six months, meaning that by December it would have had to sell 2 million every month to try and hit its year-end expectations.

What is slightly surprising is the fact the 3DS underperformed. The console was just revealed to be the console that shifted the most units in the US last year, enjoying record-breaking sales, and also enjoyed strong sales in the UK. Iwata also revealed it was the first Nintendo gaming device since 2000 to sell over 4 million units in the Japanese market. It seems this wasn't enough to hit Nintendo's lofty goals, however.

"Nintendo 3DS did not reach our sales targets in the overseas markets, and we were ultimately unable to achieve our goal of providing a massive sales boost to Nintendo 3DS in the year-end sales season," Iwata said.

"Using the US market as an example, Nintendo 3DS became the top-selling platform in the last calendar year... however, the estimated annual sales of the Nintendo 3DS hardware remain significantly lower than our initial forecast at the beginning of the fiscal year."

Full earnings information is expected at the end of the month, which should offer specific information about Nintendo's current status. We'll have to wait until later in the year to discover whether it hits its revised hardware targets.

For the sake of context, Sony's PS4 has managed to sell over 4.2 million consoles since releasing in November 2013, while Microsoft's Xbox One recently passed the 3 million mark in a similar timeframe.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/01/17/nintendo-cuts-wii-u-sales-forecast-from-9-million-to-28-million

So let's see then. What are they gonna do about it?

They'll probably just continue on they path they been on.

And be the first of the big 3 to drop out of the console market and switch to exclusively Free-to-Play Mobile Games.

You ever watch Citizen Kane where his step dad is pissed off about losing a million dollars. And Kane replies that at that rate he'll have to close his newspaper in 30 years.

Apparently Nintendo can continue losing the amount they lost last year for 20 years.

I can see Nintendo ending up like Sega soon if something doesn't change.

The marketing for the Wii U was terrible. There are still people that think that the Wii U is an extension for the Wii that they don't need.

^

fuse wrote:

I can see Nintendo ending up like Sega soon if something doesn't change.

Sega stopped making consoles because the Dreamcast and its technology was far too advanced at the time, thats why that console flopped

Sega Stopped making consoles because not even something as technically advanced as the Dreamcast could help them recover from how fucking disastrous the Saturn was.

Dreamcast is fantastic. Some fantastic games and the pad is a joy to hold. My only issue is that the games cases break so easily.

Dreamcast was a failure along with Sega was because

1)Sega CD, Sega Nomad, Sega 32x, Sega Saturn and Sega Neptune (released canceled) were all released in like a fucking 3 year time span. MASSIVE LOSS taken on manufacturing and promotions of these consoles.

and

2)It didn't play DVDS. Dumb as that sounds PS2 was the highest selling dvd player on the market for years.

The system was and is FANTASTIC, but it was a last ditched effort due to the bad management of Sega. So it had a lot more to do with the things happening within the company BEFORE it was release. The lack of dvd functional was totally unseen at the time, Sony was just on the curve like that. Just like they were with blu-rays, they would have been fucked had HD won the format wars.

Nintendo is coming off a massively successful generation with the Wii, so its gonna take a lot more for them to be in "Sega" trouble to go out of the console wars -- That's a silly assumption. As far as the Wii U? How bout slashing the fucking price if they are planning on cutting down projected sales.

THEY ARE ALREADY RUMORS GOING AROUND ABOUT A NEW CONSOLE, named Nintendo Fusion right now. So basically the Wii U is dead in the water. Better drop that price down to chump change than if you wanna save ANY FACE on that product.

I picked up my Wii U for $220 and could have gotten it for cheaper.

From articles that I've read and shows that I've watched, Nintendo has literally billions in the bank and is worth almost as much. They ain't going out of business any time soon. They just need to stop being in their own bubble so much and produce a console that is more with the times and one that doesn't come across to the casual player as a needless accessory for their old console.

And like Teej said, the Dreamcast failed because Sega already had one of two consoles before it that didn't do very well, so it was always resigned to a fate of death unfortunately. Yeah it was ahead of it's time, but that wasn't THE reason for it going defunct...