We all know that it hasn't been a particularly great year for Nintendo financially. The 3DS didn't perform as well as the company would have hoped when it was released back in February which led to a super fast price drop, and the strength of the Yen at the moment has seen the company's dollar value drop considerably in the last 12 months.
However even taking these factors into consideration, there are few who wouldn't be surprised by the fact that the company has now lost an astonishing $925 million in the six months up to September of this year. This looks set to be the first time in 30 years that Nintendo will announce full year losses - quite a turn around when you consider how profitable they have been in recent memory.
All this bad news just puts even more pressure on the Wii U to succeed when it is launched in the middle of next year - however the question is whether or not they'll be able to build on the success of the original Wii, or whether gamers will choose to hang on for the inevitable next generation of Microsoft and Sony machines.