Nintendo’s difficult year just got even worse.
The company just released revised revenue projections for its fiscal year ending in March, and this year seems like it didn’t measure up. The company said that it’s projecting a net loss of 25 billion yen ($240 million), down from an estimated net profit of ¥55 billion.
One of the primary drivers of that loss is poor sales of the Wii U, which was released in 2012. While it had originally projected that it would sell 9 million units of its latest console over the course of the fiscal year, Nintendo is now saying that it will probably sell 2.8 million Wii U consoles by March.
To put that in perspective, Microsoft and Sony have both sold more of their next-generation consoles (the Xbox One and PlayStation 4) in about three months than Nintendo is planning to sell all year.
While the 3DS, Nintendo’s handheld console, has done better, the explosion of mobile gaming has put a crimp on the handheld market, and Nintendo has revised its sales projections for the 3DS to 13.5 million units, down from 18 million units.
That’s bad news for the Japanese company, which has pinned its hopes to a “Blue Ocean” strategy that aims to make people who aren’t traditionally the sort to buy game consoles their customers. While the company hit it big with the Wii, making similar inroads with the Wii U has proven a challenge. Still, Nintendo’s first-party titles remain popular and exclusive to the company’s consoles.
It seems Nintendo is facing a question it more frequently poses to players: can Mario, Link and other characters save the day?
