Game Over? Nintendo Slashes Wii U Sales Estimates

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.

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. Read more...