Iwata says he won't resign in wake of Nintendo's third consecutive annual loss

At a press conference in Osaska today, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata apologized to investors for the expected third consecutive annual loss, stating that the failure to deliver on promised targets will not result in his resignation or an immediate management restructuring, according to Reuters.

According to Reuters, Iwata told reporters that "There will be no major management shake-up in the short term." Nintendo's president also said that he feels responsible for the company's poor financial performance and that it is important to reinvigorate its business as soon as possible.

Nintendo revised its forecasts for the year ending March 31, 2014, from a projected operating income of 100 billion yen ($958 million) to an operating loss of 35 billion yen ($335 million). According to its projections the software and hardware manufacturer now forecasts 590 billion yen ($5.65 billion) in sales and a net loss of 25 billion yen ($239 million), down from the expected net sales of 920 billion yen ($8.81 billion) and profit forecast of 55 billion yen ($526 million). The company also cut its Wii U sales forecast for the year by about 70 percent, to 2.8 million units and its 3DS sales forecast to 13.5 million, down from 18 million units.

The loss is attributed to "significantly lower" holiday season sales than expected, largely due to hardware sales not meeting targets. The year-end holiday season "constitutes the highest proportion of the annual sales volume," according to Nintendo.

"In addition, we did not assume at the beginning of the fiscal year that we would perform a markdown for the Wii U hardware in the U.S. and European markets," according to Iwata's opening explanations. "This was also one of the reasons for lower sales and profit estimates.

"We therefore modified our unit sales estimates in accordance with our performance in the year-end sales season and after the turn of the year, and the drop in software sales had the largest negative effect on our profit forecasts."

While the Nintendo 3DS showed strong sales in the Japanese market, Iwata stated, international sales targets were not met even though its market share increased as the company released "compelling titles throughout the year."