Nintendo sells 300,000 more Wii U consoles, but over two million more 3DS handhelds
Nintendo's just released its financial results for the last three months, and while hardware sales have increased substantially, it still made a loss. Wii U sales have rebounded significantly. Following price cuts mid-year, it's added 300,000 more users (almost double the 160,000 sold in the three months prior), but Nintendo remains a long way from its aim of 9 million consoles sold by March 2014. So far, it's sold 3.91 million units total. Software sales hover just below 20 million in total, with Nintendo pointing to strong sales of Pikmin 3 and its Wind Waker remake helping to reach the five million mark. However, as the company frankly put it: "Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo's profits," due to that aforementioned mark-down. This has resulted in a net loss of 8,024 million yen (around $82 million), compared to a quarterly profit earlier this year of $88 million.
Meanwhile, handheld gaming continues to boom. Nintendo sold another 2 million 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, putting the current lifetime total at 35 million -- and this is before it sees the fruits of two of its biggest portable game launches: Pokemon and Monster Hunter. Nintendo looks likely to capitalize on its handheld success, with more than a few special edition handhelds coming soon, as well as its cheaper 2DS model, which has already gone on sale. NPD reported last month that Nintendo's 3D handheld (in all its iterations) outsold all other gaming hardware in September. The company has also started testing new different business methods, launching its first online hardware store in the UK. For now, it's likely to remain a testing bed. Nintendo didn't offer up any hints that it'd be expanding the service elsewhere any time soon, although it plans on "accelerating digital distribution of packaged software" across both of its consoles.
