The gaming console giant has just posted its financial results for the last fiscal year, and as you can tell from the title of this article, the news for is bad for Nintendo. This loss is equivalent to just 2.72 million Wii U units being sold over the past year. Due to this decrease, hope is being lost about whether Nintendo can save the Wii U. In fact, the headlines have been pretty bad for a while now (it’s the third year in a row of losses). Nintendo has had a terrible run lately, and it better get its act together to influence the crucial ‘next move’. Just for comparisons sake, the Playstation 4 has already overtaken the Wii U in sales, and it came out just this year. The Wii U was introduced back in November 2012.

Ouch. What a shiner Nintendo is facing. Perhaps it’s not just that the Wii U isn’t a popular sell. Could it also link to the fact that the PS4 and Xbox One be more of what people want inside a $400 box? If you think about it, the Wii U always had a couple issues. One, not everyone knew exactly what it was (“is it the same thing as the Wii?”; “Is it a handheld console?”), and two, it lacks compelling specs that gamers are looking for. Time Magazine stated “It’s (Wii U) in the same ballpark as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, oomph-wise, but that’s not what gamers who’ve lived with Sony and Microsoft’s systems for the past six or seven years were looking for in November 2012”.

That’s exactly it. What is Nintendo doing to move gamers towards its consoles currently? Not much, and the Wii U’s price never helped matters much either: $350 at launch. On top of that, first party games never reached the console; the Wii U has yet to have its own Super Mario 64, or Wii Sports. My guess is, people stuck with their Wii because they had no reason to “upgrade”, if you can even call it that. 3DS handheld sales have also suffered. Last April, the company predicted 9 million Wii U’s and 18 million 3DS’s to be sold. Today, the numbers ended up at 2.72 and 12.4 million units sold, respectively.

So, what to do now? Nintendo mentioned one move they may be forced to make, dipping into its IP pool to “allow licensing of some of their most famous characters for use beyond video games”. No one knows exactly what this entails, “but it could mean anything from more consumer products, to feature length film adaptations”. The company will not debut new hardware during this year’s E3, but rather announce new Wii U and 3DS titles. Sources are saying some highly anticipated Nintendo games, like Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart 8, should help begin turning things around. However, if Mario Kart 8 doesn’t perform well, it is hard to imagine why customers will purchase the Wii U. Also, some unique features of the Wii U GamePad, such as its integral functionality as an NFC reader and writer, hope to drive sales. If not drive, then hopefully get the company out of the red zone.