Nintendo has been forced to cut its hardware sales projections for both the Wii U and the 3DS, following lower-than-expected sales in the last fiscal quarter. The company had originally projected that it would sell 5.5 million Wii U consoles during the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013 -- however, it has now cut that figure down to 4 million. As for the 3DS handheld, Nintendo now expects to sell 15 million units during this fiscal year, compared to its previous estimate of 17.5 million. The Nintendo DS is expected to sell 2.3 million units during this fiscal year, down from previous expectations of 2.5 million. Notably, however, the company has in fact raised its profit projections for the full fiscal year. Where it had originally slashed its profit estimates to 6 billion yen ($75.2 million), the company now expects to see profits of 14 billion yen ($153.8 million). The company put this return to profitability down mainly to foreign currency exchange gains. At the same time, Nintendo has cut its revenue projections for the full fiscal year, down to 670 billion yen ($7.4 billion) from the previously estimated 810 billion yen ($8.9 billion). For the nine months ended December 31, 2012, Nintendo posted revenue of 543 billion yen ($6.0 billion), down 2.4 percent year-over-year, and profits of 14.5 billion yen ($159.7 million), compared to losses of 48.3 billion yen ($531.6 million) year-over-year.

Hardware and software sales

The company was happy to release plenty of sales statistics for both Nintendo hardware and software during the last nine months. New Super Mario Bros. 2, released last year for the Nintendo 3DS, has now sold 5.96 million units worldwide, while Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the 3DS has sold 2.73 million units in Japan alone in just two months. Overall, the Nintendo 3DS has now sold 12.71 million hardware units worldwide during this fiscal year, and 39.56 million software units. Meanwhile, Nintendo Wii U software figures were also noted. New Super Mario Bros. U has sold 2.01 million units, while Nintendo Land sold 2.33 million copies. As for the hardware, there are now 3.06 million Wii U consoles sold worldwide, and 11.69 million software units. In comparison, the original Nintendo Wii console sold 3.53 million hardware units during these nine months, while 45.08 million software units were sold.