Topic: Wii U sales top 3 million

Interesting news from Gamespot :

"Worldwide Wii U sales topped three million units between the console’s launch and the conclusion of Nintendo’s third financial quarter ended December 31, 2012.

Software sales for the system totalled 11.7 million during the same period, with Nintendo Land hitting two million and New Super Mario Bros. U 2.3 million, the company said today.

For the business year ending March 31, Nintendo cut its Wii U sales forecast from 5.5 million units to four million, and its software sales target from 24 million units to 16 million. The firm also said it now expects to sell 15 million 3DS units by April, having previously estimated 17.5 million sales.

The downwardly revised sales guidance has resulted in the company forecasting a full-year operating loss of 20 billion yen (£139m / $220m). It previously anticipated making an operating profit of 20 billion yen. Nintendo also cut its annual revenue forecast by 17.3 per cent, although it raised its net profit forecast from six to 14 billion yen (£97.5m / $154m).

Lifetime Wii sales now total 99.38 million units, with 863.53 million games sold. Lifetime 3DS hardware sales stand at 29.84 million units, with 85 million games sold. And DS has now sold 153.67 million units and 930.55 million software units."

Personally looks like while Wii U sales was less than expected one can only see the promise this console brings with ALL the negative press it has received along with a very average lineup of games at the real launch.

If Nintendo can get generate solid 3rd party support like the Gamecube had early in its life along with a spectacular E3 they could be off to a very strong start. The Nintendo Direct is any indication looking like maybe, possibly Nintendo has turned a new page.

Nintendo is in the mainstream news today, and not in a very favorable light. Perhaps they need a price cut along with another Ambassador program for us loyalists?

It's a new console. This time of the year is bad for all game companies, so doubly as bad for Nintendo in this case. Once March/April come around, things will pick up. The 3DS basically avoided this part of the year by releasing near the end of it, so it would be a year before it would have any experience with this "drought".

So I'm just going to admit right now that I'm kind of bad with this stuff. Can anybody explain what these two quotes mean when put back-to-back?

"The downwardly revised sales guidance has resulted in the company forecasting a full-year operating loss of 20 billion yen (£139m / $220m)."
and
"Nintendo also cut its annual revenue forecast by 17.3 per cent, although it raised its net profit forecast from six to 14 billion yen (£97.5m / $154m)."

Does this mean that they are in fact going to make a net profit of 154 million for the year even though they have an operating loss of 220 million? Sorry, I'm just terrible with this stuff.

Net profit means the overall profit a company makes for the year - in other words if you take all of the money coming in, and subtract all of the money you spent, then you've arrived at your net profit.

Operating loss is less worth paying attention to. It simply means that Nintendo's taxable operating expenses have exceeded its revenue.

In layman's terms: Nintendo spent a shed load of money (not surprising, new console release and all, and one that didn't sell as much as expected - those unsold units are costly to have sitting around), but is expecting to make a small profit overall.