Nintendo, with lower-than-expected sales of both the Wii U and 3DS, has reported an annual loss of $229 million (23.2 billion yen). This is down from last year’s wea profits of around $69 million (7.1 billion yen). The company says it is establishing a new “health” division in an attempt to bolster its customer numbers and revenues. Meanwhile, analysts and pundits are vehement that Nintendo needs to fully embrace mobile gaming — as in, Mario games for smartphones — if it wants to remain relevant. In any case, Nintendo isn’t likely to right the ship any time soon: Any new health or mobile efforts will take at least a year to realize properly, and with the company yet again foregoing its E3 keynote this year, Nintendo’s agenda for 2014 probably just consists of Wii U and 3DS games.
The big picture is pretty darn bleak for Nintendo. While the company forecast sales of nine million Wii Us between March 2013 and 2014, it sold just 2.72 million units. That brings the total to just 6.17 million Wii Us sold since its release in November 2012. Compare that to the PS4, which sold 7 million units in the first five months of availability. The 3DS, after a very strong 2013 holiday season (lucky kiddies), had its weakest quarter ever at the start of 2014, selling just 590,000 units worldwide.
For pundits, analysts, and gaming enthusiasts watching on, Nintendo’s lack of a coherent plan back to gaming supremacy is a little bit unnerving. For years, ever since the original Wii peaked, the prevailing belief has been that Nintendo needs to get into the mobile gaming market — as in smartphones and tablets — rather than sticking to its own dedicated portables. If Nintendo released a cross-platform Pokemon MMO for 3DS, iOS, and Android, or even simple Mario puzzle games for iOS/Android, there company would suddenly find it had millions of new and returning customers, and probably billions more dollars in revenue.
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