Japanese gaming giant Nintendo says profits will be lower than expected after sales of its Wii U console were “significantly” below predictions.
The company says it expects to make an operating loss of 35bn yen ($335m; £205m) for the financial year ending 31 March 2014, down from an expected operating profit of 100bn yen.
In a statement the Nintendo said: “In the year-end sales season which constitutes the highest proportion of the annual sales volume, software sales with a relatively high margin were significantly lower than our original forecasts.”
In April the firm said it expected to sell 920,000 units but has now revised that figure down more than a third to 590,000.
Software sales were also “significantly” down on projections, “mainly due to the fact that hardware sales did not reach their expected level.”
Nintendo’s sales for the end of 2013 appear to have been squeezed by the pre-Christmas release of Microsoft’s new Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 which quickly exhausted stocks and remain back-ordered at many online retailers.