Nintendo slashed its sales forecast for the Wii U on Friday, all but admitting that the gaming console has been a flop.
The company revealed that it now expects to sell 2.8 million Wii U devices in the fiscal year ending March 31, down about 69% from a previous estimate of 9 million. It also halved estimates for Wii U software from 38 million to 19 million for the year.
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Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, attributed the revised sales forecast to lower-than-expected demand in the U.S. and Europe and price cuts on the devices:
In particular, sales in the U.S. and European markets in which we entered the year-end sales season with a hardware markdown were significantly lower than our original forecasts, with both hardware and software sales experiencing a huge gap from their targets. In addition, we did not assume at the beginning of the fiscal year that we would perform a markdown for the Wii U hardware in the U.S. and European markets. This was also one of the reasons for lower sales and profit estimates.
At a press conference that followed, Iwata suggested Nintendo may look for new business opportunities on mobile devices.
“Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business," Iwata said at the press conference, according to a Bloomberg report. "It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone.”
The news comes at a time when competitors like Microsoft and Sony have been touting impressive sales for their consoles. Sony recently reported selling 4.2 million Playstation 4 units through the end of 2013 and Microsoft reported selling 3 million Xbox One units through the end of the year.