Wii U Sales: Nintendo Sells Every Console at a Loss
Nintendo recently admitted they are not willing to lower the price of the Wii U because they are already selling the console at a loss.
A representative told GameIndustry.biz on Wednesday that although every Nintendo system has profited the company greatly, the Wii U is different.
The console originally launched a basic set for $300 with the deluxe going for $350. Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata feels calls for lowering the price of the Wii U is unwarranted because, "we are already offering [the Wii U] at a good price."
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Wii U only sold 160,000 units between April and June -- a number that is less than half the amount of the previous quarter.
Altogether the console has sold 3.61 million systems since November, netting them a profit of $88 million, reported Joystiq.
At this time last year, Nintendo was reporting loses of $174 million.
The creators feel that perhaps it was an act of God that slowed the company down.
"We launched the Nintendo 3DS on February 2011 and sales were strong," Nintendo said recently in a statement. "Two weeks later we were hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and that stopped the momentum. In August of the same year we lowered the price from the initial 25,000 Yen to 15,000 Yen, and enhanced software development at the same time, to enrich the game line-up."
"That paid off and we regained momentum in Japan, but due to that we could not spare many developers for the Wii U (released in November 2012), and that led to the slow start of the console," they continued.
Estimates as to the cost of damage in Japan may be over US$300 billion, according to Forbes. It is this blow to Japanese infrastructure that new tech and ideas from Japan may not have the initial push they once have. The nation is still recovering.
