Nintendo slashes Wii U forecasts

Nintendo has finally come to terms with the predicament being faced by their ailing console, Wii U, and has slashed their predicted hardware sales from 9 million units sold to just 2.8 million units sold in this financial year.

The platform holder actually revised sales predictions on all three of their consoles, with the original Wii (2m to 1.5m) and Nintendo 3DS (18m to 13.5m) also expected to sell less than first thought. It's a similar story for software, with expectations lowered for all platforms except Wii (20m to 26m) and DS (which stays steady at 10m).

Nintendo have also conceded that they are likely to make a loss this year and attribute the shortfall to lower than expected software sales as a result of struggling hardware. Previously it was thought that company would hit 100 billion Yen profit, but that figure is now down to a loss of 35 billion Yen (around £205 million), with an overall 25 billion Yen (around £146 million) loss to net profit.

"In the year-end sales season which constitutes the highest proportion of the annual sales volume, software sales with a relatively high margin were significantly lower than our original forecasts mainly due to the fact that hardware sales did not reach their expected level," Nintendo stated alongside the projections.