Times are tough over at Nintendo at the moment, and CEO Satoru Iwata has responded to the latest loss posted by the company, suggesting that it would be "unacceptable" if the trend were to continue.
"Posting an operating loss for the fourth fiscal year running is something unacceptable," Iwata said in statement that followed in the wake of yesterday's gloomy financial report. "I feel deeply responsible for this and I need to fulfill my responsibility by recovering the momentum of our business."
Iwata wants the company to return to "Nintendo-like" profits asap: "The success of a video game platform business depends greatly on its momentum, and it inevitably takes time to rebuild the business once the platform has lost its momentum," he said, noting that any turnaround for the company would take time.
From a more positive perspective, Iwata also called the next twelve months a "significant harvest year" for the 3DS, after financials revealed that 43 million handhelds had been sold so far (including 12 million in the last twelve months). Monster Hunter 4 will play a "key role" in this, as will the "many" unannounced games currently in development for the device.
Iwata then turned his attention to the Wii U, which was "unable to recover the momentum sufficiently even in the last year-end sales season", although Iwata believes given another year and titles such as Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8, it may still turn the corner in the months ahead. Part of the plan for achieving this is to better utilise the USP that is the console's distinctive controller. Whether that'll be enough for the Kyoto-based company remains to be seen.