Since this year's E3 2013 conference the race between next generation consoles has been the hot topic amongst gamers and industry insiders. However, one outlier in the heated race comes from Japanese video game company Nintendo.
Eight months ago, the company launched the Wii U, the follow-up to its game changing motion controlled gaming system. Now, the company has reported that it sold only 160,000 units of the console during its April to June financial quarter. The Wall Street Journal compares that number to the number of Xbox 360s, a console that came out in 2005, sold in the 2013 April to June quarter of 140,000.
With just 3.61 million consoles sold to date, it's no secret that Nintendo's Wii U is struggling. The poor sales were even outdone by the company's original Wii console, which went on sale in 2006 but sold 210,000 units last quarter. Despite the low numbers, Nintendo is confident it can sell its expected 9 million units by the end of the fiscal year in March of 2014.
"We will attempt to concentrate on proactively releasing key first-party titles from the second half of this year through next year to regain momentum for the platform," the company said in a statement. This will hopefully fix one of the biggest problems with the console, which is that it lacks a lot of good, recognizable titles to entice users into choosing the Wii U as a viable gaming option.
The brand has announced new versions of "Super Smash Bros.," "Super Mario Bros.," "Mario Kart" and "Donkey Kong." While these titles are certainly recognizable and exciting, they aren't exactly the driving force the company will need to get it back on its feet.
Next week will be a big week for the console as the first "must have" game, "Pikmin 3," will be released. However, analysts are saying that even this won't be enough to drive sales at the level Nintendo needs to reach its goal.
