Nintendo this morning reported a quarterly loss of 10.3 billion yen, or about $132 million. Sales of the Wii game console continued to decline in advance of the scheduled release of its successor, the Wii U, later this year.
The loss was actually not as bad as analysts had been expecting, according to Reuters.
Unit sales of the Wii fell to 710,000 for the quarter, less than half the sales of more than 1.5 million units during the same quarter a year ago. On the bright side, sales of the Nintendo 3DS climbed to more than 1.8 million units, from about 710,000 a year ago.
The console industry overall has been declining as gamers await the next generation of machines and, in some cases, shift their attention to gaming on smartphones and tablets.
Nintendo’s Wii U, the successor to the Wii, will work in conjunction with a tablet-style controller known as the Gamepad.
