Wii U reaches 13.56m units, 3DS hardware up 9.7% year-on-year

Nintendo’s latest financial report, for the nine months ending December 2016, show the firm’s net sales dipping, while its profits soar.

According to its latest release, the Japanese platform holder’s net sales saw a 26.9 per cent decline, but its profits rose by a massive 154 per cent.

The firm reports that it sales of its Wii U home console fell by 75.2 per cent, shifting 760,000 units for the nine months ending December 2016. Software, too, fell 44.8 per cent for the same period. The firm’s forecast for the rest of the financial year predicts 40,000 units of Wii U hardware being sold.

At the moment, life-to-date sales of the Wii U stand at 13.65m units. That’s a far cry from the 100m units that one Nintendo employee predicted for the machine.

There’s good news to be found in the 3DS figures. The machine has hit 65.3m units sold life-to-date. Hardware sales for the nine months up to December 2016 were up 9.7 per cent, while software rose 20 per cent.

This is likely due to the Pokmon Go effect, which had a positive impact on the machine’s performance – especially good news during the end of the machine’s life cycle. Indeed, the latest releases in the Pokmon series – Sun and Moon – have 14.69m since their November release.

Absent from this financial report are figures pertaining to the firm’s new mobile output, but Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishimahas reportedly said that Super Mario Run has been downloaded 78m times.

Nintendo has increased its financial forecast for the 2017 fiscal year. It now predicts 90bn in net income – up from 50bn – while ordinary income has tripped to 30bn.

Meanwhile, Nintendo’s extraordinary income rose a huge amount thanks to the firm selling it stake in the Seattle Mariners baseball team.