Many once successful tech companies are finding it hard to stay ahead of the pack including Nintendo who missed target sales for the Wii U by over 6 million.
Nintendo has projected an annual loss of $240 million after sales of the Nintendo Wii U did not perform as well as expected.
CEO, Satoru Iwata insists however, that he will not resign and will instead look to pushing the company into a new direction – cell phones.
While Nintendo did not inexplicably say this, Iwata did hint that investors at the company have been demanding smart devices like the iPhone and iPad.
“We are thinking about a new business structure,’ Iwata said. ‘Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone.”
Nintendo had a lot of success when the Wii first came on the market, but this Christmas the Playstation 5 and Xbox smashed out all other competition with consoles literally flying off the shelves. In fact, both the Playstation and Xbox sold out in record numbers with millions sold of each worldwide.
The Wii U however, fell short by over 6 million sales and it seems that unless the company comes out with something new and revolutionary, it may suffer the same fate as tech companies like Blackberry.
The idea of coming out with a smart tablet or phone is a pretty cliched decision for the company but, some have speculated that Iwata simply mentioned this to keep investors happy as he did not commit to the idea.
One source claims that it is more likely that Nintendo will release new hardware that combines home and portable consoles into one device.