Here is some good news and bad news from Nintendo. During its latest earnings call on Oct. 26, Wednesday, the company declared that while the sales of its Nintendo 3DS handheld showed an increase worldwide, the sales of its gaming console Wii U was declining fast.
The sales of 3DS were greatly influenced by the company's augmented reality (AR) game Pokémon Go, Attack on the Fanboy reported. Currently, the global sales of Nintendo 3DS stood at 61.7 million units. Similarly, currently the software sales of physical games stood at 293.4 million units globally.
The fiscal results released by the company stated, "The release of the smart device application Pokémon GO led to increased sales of software in the Pokémon series released in the past and drove the Nintendo 3DS family hardware sales growth, particularly outside of Japan."
Coming just before the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon in Nov. 18, this is certainly great news for the Japanese multinational consumer electronics and software firm. The overall performance of the company's handheld console, which is venturing into mobile games, is considered to be very well.
On the other hand, the sales of the Wii U, continues to plunge, as the life cycle of Nintendo's home console draws to a close. The global sales of the Wii U currently stood at 13.36 million units, while Nintendo sold 92.35 million units of software of physical games. The company expects to ship just 800,000 units in the current fiscal year.
Recently, Nintendo has announced officially that they will introduce the Nintendo Switch, which will replace the Wii U. According to the Japanese multinational, the Nintendo Switch, a console-and-handheld hybrid device, will be release in March 2017. Nevertheless, the company has not released any details about the new device and they are expected to be made public early next year, Forbes reported.
Aside from releasing the sales figures of its best-selling Wii U and 3DS games and hardware, Nintendo has also reworked the company's forecast for the fiscal ending March 31, 2017. Now, the company is looking forward to net sales of $4.5 billion (470 billion yen, 6 percent from the previous forecast announced in April this year.
Nintendo further announced that they will end the current fiscal with Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS, in addition to the company's iOS mobile title, Super Mario Run. Unlike Pokémon GO, these titles have been developed in-house and will directly contribute to its fiscal results.
Watch the trailer of Nintendo's augmented reality game Pokémon Go below: