Nintendo sells 10 million Wii Us, still not making much money
Nintendo has posted yet another slim profit as it moves beyond the financial difficulties of the past few years. The slow launch of the Wii U and the stagnation of its handheld sales caused Nintendo to fall dramatically from grace after the runaway success of the Wii. After recording its first annual profit since 2011 earlier this year, though, it's proved it can stay in the black in spite of the Wii U's meagre popularity, making just over $9million in the latest quarter.
Nintendo only managed to sell 470,000 flagship consoles over the past three months, down slightly from last year's 510,000. That at least pushes the Wii U's total sales above the 10 million barrier. For context, it took over 30 months for Nintendo to sell what Sony managed in less than a year with PS4. Software sales were still remarkably strong -- 4.55 million over the quarter -- proving that, while the Wii U may not be a big seller, its gamers definitely love Nintendo games. Splatoon sold 1.62 million copies, and Wii U owners now own (on average) six games for their console.
While the Wii U still languishes in third place, Nintendo had a very strong quarter for 3DS, with sales of 1.1 million. That's up 23 percent from last year, likely due to the availability of the new 3DS, and software remained fairly steady at a shade under 8 million. It's worth noting that the first quarter is historically a tough one for Nintendo, and these figures actually represent the company's strongest showing in a few years. But with no big releases on the horizon for either system, the company is unlikely to see a huge leap in sales next quarter. That's curious, given it's predicting around a $400 million profit for the year, and has so far managed less than 3 percent of that figure. It's hoping that the release of Super Mario Maker, Star Fox, and Mario Tennis will pick things up for the holiday season, before it's ready to show us something totally new in 2016.
