Nintendo FY2015-16: $290 Million Dollars Profit, 13.3 million Wii U Units Sold, 59.9 Million 3DS Units Sold

• Net sales: U.S.$4,464 (millions of dollars)
• Operating income: 290 (millions of dollars)
• Number of employees: 5,064 [633 temporary]
• 3DS global hardware sales: 6.79 million
• Wii U global hardware sales: 3.26 million
• 3DS global software sales: 48.52 million
• Wii U global software sales: 27.36 million

TOTAL WII U SALES (GLOBAL): 13.27 million units
TOTAL 3DS SALES (GLOBAL): 59.86 million units

SOURCE

@charizard1605: The WiiU managed to sell 3+ million units for the last fiscal year? Not bad. I mean, for a dead console and all that :P

Splatoon putting in the work I suppose. Though the software sales seem healthy enough, which is a plus.

Btw, out of curiosity, would the 3DS be the lowest selling handheld (right now) for Ninty? Or did the OG Gameboy(or any of it's variants) fall under those numbers?

Original Gameboy was at 58 million, with another 60 million coming from the Gameboy Color. You could argue the 3DS outperformed the original Gameboy, but Nintendo considers the Gameboy and Gameboy Color one system and consolidates their sales, for a total of 118 million, so by that technicality, the 3DS is, yes, Nintendo's worst performing handheld ever.

I'd say its pretty impressive that they are still able to put up an OI of 290 mil with fairly low hardware sales. Nintendo just finds success with their software no matter what.

I find it weird that Nintendo combines GB and GBC sales together. But to be fair, the 3DS did a pretty good job since it had to compete against iOS/Android devices, as well as the Vita. If you removed that competition, then 3DS sales would be through the roof., waaayy past the GB.

@charizard1605: Ah, unfortunate. Can't be helped though, mobile market kinda took over the handheld space. Even 60 million seems pretty good considering the current market.

Still, on a broader view: the lowest Ninty did on the handheld market was 58 million! That's not something everyone can brag about (even on the console space)!

Wow even with low Wii U numbers, Nintendo still manages to release them. MS, on the other hand....

I finally caved and got a Wii U for my son. He's been nagging me about Mario Kart for the longest.

@Zero_epyon: don't talk about MS or a salty lem gonna roast you.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, right?

Back in the day when Gameboy and Gameboy Color and GBA and NDS for that matter were kings there weren't smartphones, so considering the 3DS it's worse sales performing handheld is pretty idiotic.

M$ only reports XBL numbers now and even those are misleading because they mix silver users in with gold users.

All very impressive numbers considering how doomed they are. There should be even better numbers next year.

I'll just use that salt for my popcorn...

Facing a similar situation. I'll get him one if they ever drop it to a reasonable price.

And fanboys will continue to ignore this little fact until the end of time, and erroneously claim they are doomed if they don't act like the company they worship.

War, war never changes.

@charizard1605: Off topic for a question if you don't mind.Since you know quite a bit about Nintendo and vg in general,do you know if Nintendo is allowing pre-ordered Nintendo NX yet??Does Nintendo have a release date yet??Approx price??Any info is appreciated.Thank You. :)

No details are available on the NX at all apart from the fact that it exists. Most places in the world have not yet opened pre-orders for the system, but there is at least one retailer in Australia that will let you do it. So if you happen to live in Australia- sure, you can pre-order the NX right now lol. Otherwise, we have to wait till around September or October, I would guess.

Nintendo doesn't make much on hardware sales, never has. They make money on direct software sales and licensing (primarily on the rights to publish titles on their platform).

3DS sales have certainly slowed compared to the DS sales, though I wonder how much of that slump can be attributed to just getting it so right early on with the 3DS XL model, I mean the DS went through so many iterations, had the regular one, the Lite, the DSi and XL models, not to mention so many variety of designs and colors (something they've been lacking with the 3DS).

It probably helped too that with the Wii being a success there alongside the DS that they really helped bolster each other and Nintendo's name brand recognition. And, well, considering how bad the Wii U has done it's amazing the 3DS has even reach 60 million.

This is nonsense. Nintendo has always made obscene profits on its hardware, owing to its general reluctance to ever sell hardware at a loss. All Nintendo systems are sold at a hefty markup, and the Wii U and 3DS (temporarily) were the first Nintendo systems to be sold at a loss.

Yeah I was doing the same. Didn't seem to budge. Probably won't until the NX is announced officially.

I think 3DS would have done even better had the gaming community not hated on it so much before/after release and parents had not been so scared of 3D.

Pretty good year Nintendo, very impressed. Never give up.

The environment in which it sold its inane when it comes to raw numbers. The 3DS has, by the numbers, the lowest sales numbers out of any handheld. Is that saying it's sales numbers are disappointing given it's competition.. not at all. But to imply it's idiotic to say it's the worst selling handheld, is pretty idiottc.

You need to do some research. Hardware margins are usually tight, even for Nintendo. GameCube was sold for a slight loss both at launch and after the drop to $99. Handhelds and Wii were the only cases of larger margins, and even then it was never anywhere near "obscene" or "hefty." Their comments about NX indicate that a tight margin is planned for that as well, since they've gone as far as siting exchange rates as a major factor.

Right, Gamecube was the other one, I did miss that.

That said, SNES, N64, Wii were all sold at a profit, as were all Nintendo handhelds sans the 3DS for about a year.

3DS still not at 50% sales of DS. Huge drop off between generations.

Really curious what they plan for their future handheld. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a full fledged tablet with physical controls as I don't see another traditional handheld selling 60 million units again.

As for the Wii U, well I'm done beating that dead horse.

Isn't the DS the greatest selling handheld of all time? It might even top ps2 for number 1. Very few devices compare. No shame in 3ds doing what it does.

That wouldn't happen to be EB Games?..lol :P

And they've probably doubled that now with Pokemon GO and the whole "being bigger than porn on the internet" thing.

@foxhound_fox: Yeah, Nintendo balling stronger then ever. Got that Legendary Entertainment on board now.

While 60 million is still very good, the fact that Nintendo couldn't even hit 50% of DS sales at this point shows how much the mobile market affected them and its only going to get worse from here on out unless Nintendo plans to release a tablet or phone.

Wii U Flop

@emgesp: A tablet or phone from Nintendo would flop harder than anything Nintendo has ever put out except Virtual Boy, and it wouldn't be too far off. There is zero point in them ever doing that. Making a controller for existing tablets and phones would make more sense than that would. Seriously, think about what you're saying. "Nintendo can't compete with Sony and Microsoft? They should compete with Samsung and Apple instead!"

@foxhound_fox: Pokémon GO hasn't even come close to doubling that. Total Pokémon GO revenue isn't even at 20% of that, and Nintendo only gets 15-20% of that revenue in the first place.

Nintendo gets *at least* 20%.

It's confirmed that Nintendo directly gets 10% from Pokemon Go, and The Pokemon Company gets 30%. Since Nintendo owns 1/3 of The Pokemon Company, that gives them an additional 10%, bringing the total to 20%. But Nintendo also has stocks in Game Freak and Creatures, which would get them more than 1/3 of that 30% - it's unkown exactly how much. On top of that, Nintendo has stocks in Niantic themselves. Niantic gets 30%, but it's unknown how much Nintendo gets from that.

So we know for sure it's at least 20%, but we don't know how much higher since we don't know how much Nintendo have invested in the other companies.

@trugs26: Yeah, both Nintendo and The Pokemon Co own part of Niantic also, so its a mystery who gets what. But thats how companies do, they hide their company in other companies to not make their company seem so big. And monopoly purposes for some, since monopoly is still frowned upon these days.

Game Freak is a completely independent company; Nintendo owns nothing from them. You're also forgetting about the fact that I'm talking about the total revenue from the game, 30% of which goes to Google/Apple. The remaining 70% gets split among these companies. You're also mistaken on how stocks and profit work. Really though, even if Nintendo got 50% it wouldn't change anything about my point.

They only thrive in the handheld market anymore. Casual titles like Pokemon go prove this is where their success is. I don't see them doing well with consoles ever again unless they create more franchises that are more suitable for console over handheld

@techhog89: Nintendo owns 40% of Game Freak. They also own 40% of Creatures. They cant own anymore though, cause i think it states max is 40%. If they own any more, they have to release financial info such as combined income, expenses, assets and liabilities.

Citations needed.

@techhog89: I have none.

Okay then.

People have lost faith in Nintendo and the Wii U has caused it to come to a head. Once you no longer have the confidence and trust of a large portion of the market, you're screwed. Whatever the NX turns out to be, I think even if it is good people will hesitate making a purchase because they'll be waiting to see when they get screwed since they will be expecting it to happen.

This proved how much of a flop the Wii U really is. 13.3M WW sales is absolutely laughable.

@kingtito: So was Gamecube, and it had third party support and was super powerful. And that beach was super cheap. They had to mark it down to $99 just to push it.

Well, then Nintendo better not expect their future handheld to sell as well as the 3DS because its not going to happen. Dedicated handhelds have about a generation left of relevancy.

What was the decline between the N64/GCN and the Wii/Wii U? Unfortunately the Wii U was the biggest failure Nintendo has experienced considering where it was elevated with the Wii. Only achieving 12 or 13 percent of what you were able to sell is bad, really bad!

Well according to site's I've read roughly 50% of all android market transactions are from Pokémon Go.

15 - 20% is quite a lot.