Nintendo estimates only 800k Wii U sales this year

Internal forecasts for the Wii U in Nintendo’s current financial year point to a possible cancellation for the hardware.

Nintendo says it expects to sell just 800,000 units in the 12 months ending March 31st 2017. That compares to sales of 3.2m units for the machine in the financial year that has just ended.

Such a low prediction could quite easily point to a cancellation for the machine, as 800k could very easily represent current inventory levels.

There’s very little on the way to the console, either. In triple-A terms, the new Legends of Zelda won’t be here until next year – and will also be released on the new NX, which is also due in 2017.

The only other games currently on the Wii U release scheduled are Paper Mario: Colour Splash and the as of yet undetailed Project Giant Robot.

And most recent Wii U release, Star Fox Zero, has so far failed to perform commercially.

The 3DS has a little more on the way – Pokemon Sun and Moon, Kirby: Planet Robotbot and Metroid Prime: Federation Force. The 3DS sold 6.8m units this year. The company expects to shift 5m in the coming financial year.

Nintendo must surely be hoping for big things from its newly confirmed smartphone titles, Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing, if it is to avoid a terrible financial performance this year. All eyes will be looking to how Nintendo’s share price performs over the next 24 hours.