After a dismal holiday season, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said, "we failed to reach our target for hardware sales during the year-end, when revenues are the highest." The Japanese gaming tycoon now expects to post a loss of 35 million yen ($335 million) when their fiscal year ends March 31st, 2014.
The company has also slashed its projected Wii U sales from 9 million to a measly 2.8 million. To put things in perspective, the PS4 and Xbox One have been out for about two months now and both have surpassed 2.8 million units sold. Nintendo has also cut its sales for their handheld gaming system the 3DS from 18 million to 13.5 million units.
So what exactly does Nintendo need to do to crawl out of this hole? They refuse to allow their games to be played on competitor systems as well as mobile devices like phones and tablets. The company is also missing out on big titles like the year's best selling game, Grand Theft Auto V which had sold 29 million copies by the end of October. Nintendo will be facing even more competition this year as they try to keep up with the PS4 and Xbox One and their competitively priced predecessors, the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Both the 360 and PS3 retail for about $250-$300 and have a much larger game library available to them, including plenty of low priced used games.
It seems to me like all that Nintendo has going for them is the 3DS. They truly have no competition when it comes to handheld sales. The 3DS sold approximately 11.5 million units last year. While it still came up short of their goals, it did phenomenally well. The addition of the 2DS with an intriguing price point is sure to boost sales even further for their handheld market.
So what do you think? Should Nintendo drop out of the console market and focus all their efforts on their handheld systems, where their strength truly lies. Or, should they have more realistic business goals and develop a way to gain more traction for the Wii U?
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