Nintendo loses less money, but Switch can't come fast enough

Nintendo's latest financial report is more dour reading for console gaming. While the company saw sales of 74.8 billion yen ($718.86 million), up since last quarter, it has to contend with an operating loss of 813 million yen ($7.8 million) over the last three months. Well, at least it's a smaller loss than the last quarter. It sold 1,770,000 3DSes and 349,000 Wii U home consoles. In fact, Nintendo almost doubled the number of 3DS consoles it sold compared to Q1. 3DS software sales -- and this is before the launch of a highly anticipated new Pokemon title -- was a highlight, with over 10 million games sold. Pokemon Omega and Alpha and Kirby Planet Robot both sold over a million copies, respectively. On the Wii U, Nintendo sold just 3.6 million titles; a decrease for the a console that simply hasn't caught your imagination.

Nintendo can thank its sale of the Seattle Mariners for even gloomier financial reading -- it helped to boost its income for the quarter. Mentions of Pokemon Go are conspicuously absent in the financial report, but Nintendo says it earned 12 billion yen from affiliate companies, including Niantic Labs that made the smartphone game.

The company notes in its own report that Wii U hardware sales down over 50 percent since the same period last year. In the company's words: "There were no hit titles this period to compare with Splatoon and Super Mario Maker last year." Well, that's just sad.

At this point, it's fascinating to see the gap between both Nintendo's home consoles and its portables compared to the generation that came before it. The Wii U has now sold 13.36 million units, but in its lifetime, the Wii sold almost 102 million units. Likewise, while the 3DS might be a hit in comparison to the poor Wii U, compared to the DS, hardware sales aren't even half as good: 61.6 million versus 154 million. The 3DS is now over five years old.