Nintendo posts $366 million annual operating loss, Wii U and 3DS sales miss targets

Nintendo posted a 36.4 billion yen operating loss ($366 million) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013, the company said today in its fiscal earnings. It's the hardware and software maker's second consecutive annual operating loss.

Thanks to the depreciation of the yen, however, Nintendo's net income, or profit, was 7 billion yen ($71 million). Wii U sales continue to have a "negative impact on Nintendo's profits," the company said.

Net sales for the year were lower than previously forecast at 635.4 billion yen ($6.38 billion), down slightly from the year before.

The company has sold 3.45 million Wii U consoles since the system's launch in November. Nintendo had previously projected sales as high as 5.5 million, but lowered that projection to 4 million.

Weaker than expected Wii U sales were attributed to the delay in development of post-launch software titles, Nintendo said in a release. As of March 31, Nintendo says it has sold 13.42 million Wii U titles worldwide. The company revealed sales of two Wii U titles: Nintendo Land and New Super Mario Bros. U, which have sold 2.6 million and 2.15 million units globally.

The original Wii moved another 3.98 million units during the company's fiscal year, and an additional 50.61 million units of Wii software were sold.

Nintendo sold 13.95 million units of Nintendo 3DS hardware and 49.61 million units of software worldwide. Nintendo highlighted sales of 3DS game New Super Mario Bros. 2, which reached 6.42 million units, although Nintendo 3DS sales were also labeled weaker than expected. Lifetime to date sales of the Nintendo 3DS hardware and its software reached 31.09 million and 95.03 million, respectively.

For the company's current fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2014, Nintendo projects net sales of 920 billion yen and operating income of 100 billion yen, which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has recently pledged.

Nintendo says it plans to "concentrate on proactively releasing key Nintendo titles from the second half of this year through next year in order to regain momentum" for Wii U. "Nintendo strives to improve the sales by communicating the compelling nature of our hardware and software to as many people as possible through our new networks service called Miiverse," reads a release. Nintendo also hopes to improve Wii U hardware profitability by reducing costs.