Last year’s decision to launch its latest console, the Wii U, has proven to have been costly for Nintendo, as the company posted a sales decline of 8pc in 2013 compared to the previous year.
The Japanese gaming company that has recently come down on its sales estimates for 2014 after the realisation the Wii U has simply proven incapable of competing with the larger console makers, like Microsoft and Sony, who also launched consoles last year.
According to its report, Nintendo made just under 500bn yen in 2013 compared with just over 543bn yen in the same period of 2012.
In total, the company only sold 2.41m Wii Us in 2013, which pales in comparison to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which reached sales figures of more than 4m after having only entered the market in November 2013.
3DS maintains sales
Nintendo’s mobile gaming market, however, proved to be in a better state, as the 3DS sold 12.9m units, signifying that despite the rise of gaming on smartphones and other devices, there still remains a market for handheld consoles.
Speaking after the release of the figures, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced that with the news of the company’s poor financial year, he has asked for his salary to be cut in half and for other board members to have their salary cut by between 20 and 30pc also.
Explaining the downturn, the statement said: “With respect to Wii U, Nintendo released key first-party titles such as The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, Wii Party U and Super Mario 3D World from the summer toward the year-end sales season. While these titles each sold over 1m units, the Wii U business as a whole was not able to recover fully.”
