3DS sales "weaker than expected" despite Japan success

Nintendo has lowered its annual profit forecast after reporting "weaker than expected" sales of the 3DS outside Japan.

That's despite the 3DS selling gangbusters amounts every week in the Japanese chart, where it regularly outmatches the rest of the hardware combined.

Nintendo's financial forecast for the year is now a much slimmer six billion yen (£47m) profit, revised from the 20 billion yen (£157m) it expected earlier in the year.

The company is also suffering at the hands of the yen exchange rate, which wiped out 23.2 billion yen (£181m) of company value.

Nintendo again made a loss for the six months ended September 2012, but a far smaller one than last year. Nintendo lost 27.9 billion yen (£219m) in net income, an improvement on the 70 billion yen (£551m) lost during the same period in 2011.

The total number of 3DS units sold worldwide now stands at 22.19 million units, up from 19 million at the end of June. 2.1 million of those consist of the new 3DS XL model.

More than 64.45 million 3DS games have been now sold, a figure which includes download sales.

Much rests on the launch of the Wii U this Christmas, as the company fights to turn a profit following the first ever loss in its history last year.