Nintendo cuts Wii U sales forecast by 1.5 million, says console having "a negative impact on profits"
Wii U software forecast reduced by 8 million.
Nintendo has cut the number of Wii U consoles and games it reckons it will sell this year, after lower than expected sales over the Christmas period.
The company's much-trumpeted target of 5.5 million Wii U consoles has been reduced to 4 million by the financial year's end.
Nintendo previously predicted it would sell 24 million Wii U games in the same time-frame, a number that has been reduced to 16 million.
Overall, Nintendo adjusted sales expectations for all of its platforms, with slightly lower totals now expected for 3DS, DS and Wii - for both hardware and software.
Overall sales expectations have been reduced by 17.3 per cent, and the company now expects to end the year with a loss in operating income. But, crucially, the company continues to forecast an end-of-year profit - paid for by changes in the yen exchange rate which have now turned in Nintendo's favour.
The company has shifted 3.06 million Wii U consoles since its launch last November, and 11.69 million Wii U games.
It sold 1.32 million Wii U consoles in North America, 830,000 in Japan and 900,000 in Europe.
Best-selling games included first-party titles Nintendo Land (2.33 million sold) and New Super Mario Bros. U (2.01 million sold).
"Owing to the fact that the Wii U hardware sales have a negative impact on Nintendo's profits, the operating loss was 5.8 billion yen," Nintendo said. "As a result of exchange gains totaling 22.2 billion yen due to the depreciation of the yen at the end of calendar year 2012, however, ordinary income was 22.7 billion yen and net income was 14.5 billion yen."
3DS hardware and software sales are currently up year-on-year - in no small part due to the success of titles such as New Super Mario Bros. 2 (5.96 million sold) and Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2.73 million).
The latest Pokémon games, Black 2 and White 2, predictably also performed - notching up 7.63 million copies between the two versions.
Eurogamer yesterday published a detailed investigation into how the Wii U has sold so far, with lower-than-expected Wii U sales short of the company's 5.5 million target.