Wii U Sales Numbers Give Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Low Approval Rating Over Tanking Profits
Nintendo's president and CEO Satoru Iwata has received the lowest approval rating by his board since taking over.
According to IGN, Iwata had a 92.9 percent rating from Nintendo's shareholders in 2011. Last year, that number dropped to 77.3 percent, which is most likely due to the company's inability to make money off of the Wii U console.
According to an announcement by Nintendo earlier this year, the company is anticipating a loss of 25 billion yen instead of making 55 billion yen as expected. Sales of the console were lowered from 9 million to 2.8 million as Nintendo's lofty goals in sales are falling well short.
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"In particular, sales in the [United States] and European markets in which we entered the year-end sales season with a hardware markdown were significantly lower than our original forecasts," Iwata said, reported IGN.
While projections for the home console were off, the handheld numbers were lowered as well. 18 million 3DS, 3DS XL, and 2DS' were collectively predicted to sell. Now that number has been adjusted to 13.5 million.
Nikkei reported that Iwata along with a number of other Nintendo execs have collectively decided to cut their pay until the company is back and kicking. The other directors will get a 20 to 30 percent pay cut, and this will be effective from February to June. Iwata will be losing 50 percent of his pay.
In other Wii U news, system update 4.03 was rolled out this week, and aimed to fix small stability and performance issues.
The last update Nintendo released was back in September, which saw major features added such as SpotPass. Other smaller updates over the last few months have included Wii U menu layout changes with particular attention on the Friends List, USB keyboard support, better Internet browser use, and audio and video output for the GamePad, reported Wii U Daily.
