Nintendo’s Wii U in Japan from December

Tokyo: Nintendo Co., the world’s biggest video-game machine maker, will sell its new Wii U console in Japan beginning in December for at least 26,250 yen (Dh1238) as the company tries to recover from its first annual loss.

Nintendo also will sell a premium version for 31,500 yen starting December 8, President Satoru Iwata said in a webcast on Thursday. The Kyoto, Japan-based company will offer games including “New Super Mario Bros. U” and “Nintendo Land,” Iwata said.

The console maker counts on the Wii U, the first new home- gaming machine by a major maker since 2006, to propel a recovery after sales of the 3DS handheld player missed projections because of a lack of popular software titles. Nintendo faces growing competition from games played online and on smartphones from companies including Apple Inc, which will begin selling the iPhone 5 next week.

“Nintendo’s earnings are entirely dependent on the performance of the Wii U,” Makoto Sengoku, a Tokyo-based market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co., said before the announcement. “It can win big or lose big.”

The Wii U features a 6.2-inch touch-screen controller, which will provide extra information to players as they manipulate games on their TVs. It can also become the primary screen when they move around. The machine includes new social- networking features, allowing players to interact with each other.

Nintendo will hold an event today in New York to unveil plans for the Wii U in the US.

Sony Corp sells its PlayStation 3 game console from 24,980 yen in Japan and $249 in the US Microsoft Corp’s Xbox is priced from 19,800 yen in Japan, or $199.99 in US stores. Apple’s iPhone 5 will have a price tag starting at $199, and the iPad is sold from $499.

Nintendo rose 2.3 per cent to 9,230 yen in Osaka trading before the announcement. The shares have dropped 13 per cent this year, compared with a 65 per cent gain by Cupertino, California- based Apple.

Iwata, 52, has said software titles will help drive sales of the new console. The 3DS, which cost 25,000 yen in Japan before the price was cut by as much as 40 per cent in August, was hobbled by a lack of attractive titles, he said in April.

Retail sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories in the US, the world’s biggest video-game market, fell 20 per cent last month from a year earlier, led by a 39 per cent plunge in hardware sales, NPD Group Inc said on September 6. That followed a 20 per cent drop in July, according to the Port Washington, New York-based researcher.

Nintendo sold 9.84 million Wii machines in the year ended March 31, compared with 13.9 million PlayStation 3 consoles in the same period. Microsoft sold 14.9 million Xbox machines in 2011.

The Wii U screen on the console’s controller will provide extra information to players as they manipulate games on their TVs, and can become the primary screen when they move around. The machine also includes new social-networking features, allowing players to interact with each other.

Tokyo-based Sony will introduce the PlayStation Mobile service later this year, offering titles for HTC Corp devices as well as its PlayStation Vita portable player and Sony Xperia smartphone, it said in June. At the E3 trade show in June, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corp unveiled an application called Xbox SmartGlass that will link the console to phones, tablets and personal computers from Microsoft and rivals.

Iwata has ruled out the possibility of making Nintendo’s characters available for gaming devices other than its own.