Nintendo’s Announces Third Annual Operating Loss in a Row, Underwhelming Wii U Sales

Will Mario Kart 8, Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby be enough to pull Nintendo into the green? Or does Nintendo have some other tricks up its sleeves that we'll see at E3?

According to IGN, Nintendo has revealed it's third annual operating loss in a row, attributed again to underwhelming Wii U console sales. As a part of this past fiscal year's financial report, Nintendo revealed that its annual operating loss was roughly $457 million. Most of these losses stem from underwhelming sales of the Wii U, which has sold 6.17 million consoles since it launched in Nov. 2012. To put it in perspective, Sony has already outsold the Wii U with over seven million PS4 units moved since its debut in Nov. 2013. Nintendo originally predicted to sell nine million consoles for the year, and dropped the expected figure to 2.8M this past January, which was not even met by the end of this past fiscal year.

Nintendo has sold has sold 43.2 million 3DS handhelds overall, which is a great number, but still lower than the company's original predictions. The Big N has also been moving parts of its DS library over to the Wii U Virtual Console in order to help promote sales. In terms of the future, Nintendo hopes to earn a profit of $394 million in the next year, predicting it will sell 12 million 3DS handhelds and 3.6 million Wii U consoles.

Never count the house of Link and Mario out. Nintendo is still sitting on a pretty hefty cash reserve, so sales figures like these aren't going to bankrupt the company anytime soon. The company knows it needs to shift gears and move forward, so hopefully its E3 presentation will offer a glimpse into a changing tide.