Nintendo still in the red but losses have been reduced thanks to 3DS sales

Nintendo has announced that it made a loss in the last financial year, but it is clawing back some revenue thanks to healthy Nintendo 3DS sales.

The handheld console may have got off to a shaky start but it is now in rude sales health thanks to a boost from the 3DS XL, with Nintendo shifting 1.86 million 3DS consoles during the last quarter, as opposed to 710,000 in the same quarter last year.

It's not looking so rosy in the Wii camp though: in Q1 2011, Nintendo sole 1.56 million consoles, compared to 710,000 in Q1 2012. No doubt a few people are now hanging on for the Wii U (and pretty much everyone in the world has a Wii by now too).

XL-lent

All in all, this adds up to another loss for the Japanese game company: a £143 million loss, to be exact.

That may sound like a bleak bit of news for Nintendo fans - the company posted its first ever loss earlier this year, but the latest figures show that the losses are actually lessening, something Nintendo attributes to the 3DS's strong sales.

The reason Nintendo is still not making money is because its hardware is sold at a loss, with the plan being to make more money from game sales.

But Nintendo sees strong sales continuing into the financial year ending March 2013, expecting to sell 18.5 million 3DS consoles during that time, meaning it will return to profit (with a little help from the Wii U, presumably).

Via CVG