The Kyoto-based company reported on Wednesday that its net profit of 7.10 billion yen ($71.7 million) for the year ended in March, from a loss of ¥43.20 billion in the previous year. The result missed a consensus forecast for a ¥14.05 billion profit by 15 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The creator of Super Mario reported an operating loss of ¥36.41 billion for the 12 months, compared with a loss of ¥37.32 billion a year earlier, on revenue of ¥635.42 billion, down 1.9 percent.

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AllThingsD will be there keeping an eye on two questions in particular: How is the business of mobile games changing, and how are the makers of consoles and other physical media responding to mobile’s ascendance?

This year’s conference also promises to at least touch on the growing relevance of women in the gaming community, and will also highlight the gap between small independent games studios and the larger legacy companies that are finding different degrees of success in staying relevant as their industry continues to expand and fracture.

If you only read one gaming statistic this week, let it be this one: In a pre-conference survey, GDC 2013’s organizers found that 58 percent of gaming professionals attending either last year’s conference or this one plan to release their next game on smartphones or tablets. That’s a tad greater than commitments to the Xbox 360, Microsoft’s next console, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U and Wii combined, which together garnered “next game” pledges from 56.5 percent of developers.

Nevertheless, interest in gaming hardware is still strong, particularly for established consoles and for the Android-based consoles Ouya and GameStick, both of which bested the next Xbox and the PlayStation 4 when those same survey respondents were asked what platforms most excited or interested them.

Stay tuned for more!

The market researcher said Friday that Wii U shipments rose over 40 percent month over month in February — encouraging news were it not for the poor shipment number from which they rose. Wii U shipments are believed to be as low as 57,000 units during January. In other words, Nintendo’s Wii U shipments for the month of February were somewhere in the mid-60,000s. For a console that debuted just a few months ago, that’s just plain lousy. Consider this: Microsoft shipped 302,000 Xbox consoles during the same period.

Suffice to say, Wii U is vastly underperforming expectations. So much so that you’ve got to wonder if Nintendo will meet its already lowered projections for the console. Back in January, the company slashed its sales forecast for the Wii U to four million consoles by the end of March from a prelaunch estimate of 5.5 million. If NPD’s latest numbers are a reasonable indication, even that number may be too high for the company to reach.

Ugly news for Nintendo. If the company’s brand-new Wii U can’t hold its own against Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 — both of which are more than five years old — how will it fare against the forthcoming PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s next-generation Xbox?

Time for a price cut? Maybe, but the company has previously ruled that out.

“With Wii U, we have taken a rather resolute stance in pricing it below its manufacturing cost, so we are not planning to perform a markdown,” Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in January. “I would like to make this point absolutely clear. We are putting our lessons from Nintendo 3DS to good use, as I have already publicly stated. However, given that it has now become clear that we have not yet fully communicated the value of our product, we will try to do so before the software lineup is enhanced and at the same time work to enrich the software lineup which could make consumers understand the appeal of Wii U.”

Looks like Nintendo still has a lot of work to do communicating that value.

There’s no doubt about it’s strength in the U.S., but internationally, it’s not so clear how the seven-year old game console is faring, especially in comparison to Sony’s PlayStation. 

Microsoft sold 281,000 Xbox 360 units in January, up 4.1 percent from 270,000 a year ago, according to the NPD Group, which tracks sales of video-game software, hardware and accessories in the U.S. that occur at retail.

Earlier this week at D: Dive Into Media, Yusuf Mehdi, who leads Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, also provided an update based on internal data.

He said the overall Xbox installed base is now at 76 million, up from 70 million at the end of September of last year. Also, 24 million Kinects have been sold, up from 20 million last year, and there are 46 million Xbox Live accounts, up from 40 million.

Sales continue to be brisk because the company has been successful at moving beyond a hard-core gaming audience to serve members of the family who like other forms of entertainment, such as streaming video or music.

But the rivalry between the different console makers is particularly intense right now as the industry waits for the next-generation devices to launch.

The Nintendo Wii U was the first to launch this holiday season, but has had a relatively lackluster performance. Next week, Sony is planning to unveil its new home videogame console at an event in New York. But Microsoft has remained mum on its plans for any potential Xbox 720. Earlier this week, Mehdi refused to budge on the subject. “I’ll politely decline any comment,” he said.

So, the question is, will Sony’s PlayStation 4 be well received?

If global trends are any indication, it’s possible. Based on numbers culled from the three company’s earnings reports, Geekwire was able to determine that the PlayStation 3 was the best-selling home console worldwide during the holidays.

Sales of the PS2 and PS3 totaled 6.8 million units for the December quarter to beat the number of Nintendo Wii and Wii U units sold (5.3 million), and the number of units reported by Microsoft for the Xbox 360 (5.9 million).

For the full year, the two PlayStation devices together sold 15.6 million units worldwide, compared with 8 million for Nintendo and about 11 million for the Xbox 360.

In other words, Sony continues to have a very strong worldwide presence for the PlayStation, compared to the Xbox which seems to dominate in the U.S.

Overall, however, the hardware sector remains fairly weak. Most executives in the videogame industry believe a new wave of hardware is needed to spur consumer interest again, while others believe that gamers are less attached to the living room than they were before and prefer gaming wherever they are from their phone or tablet.

NPD reported that sales of hardware in January were down 17 percent year over year when taking into account that the month had five weeks instead of four.

The revised sales view is the latest dose of bad news for Nintendo, coming off its first annual loss in more than three decades, after a sluggish start to its previous hardware launch, the Nintendo 3DS hand-held, pushed the company into an early price cut.

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While being able to play classic games for a small fee will be a definite crowd-pleaser, an overlooked aspect of the announcements had to do with Nintendo’s plans for launching apps for smartphones.

The creation of any software for non-Nintendo hardware is groundbreaking for the company, which has been dead set against sharing its well-loved brands with any other device manufacturer.

But yesterday, Nintendo said that the Wii U’s social network, called Miiverse, will be expanding to smartphones this spring. And while initially gamers will be able to connect to the network from a smartphone browser, in the future Nintendo plans to create dedicated Miiverse apps.

Currently, Miiverse appears on the Wii U’s start-up screen as a virtual hangout, where avatars walk around a virtual “plaza.” Game players will be able to post their thoughts in “speech bubbles” that appear over their heads with text or drawings — sort of like status updates on Twitter or Facebook.

Over the past two years, Nintendo has made it abundantly clear that it is not interested in developing games like Zelda or Super Mario Bros. for any other platform. While the company still is not saying that its policy has changed on that front, a good experience with the Miiverse could help change its mind.

In what could be another sign of changing philosophy, the company confirmed last week that it is planning to bring together its console and handheld gaming teams in recognition of the trend toward the popularity of gaming on portable devices. The two groups will work under one roof in a $340 million facility in Japan.

But otherwise, Nintendo has been very clear about its aversion to other platforms.

A year and a half ago, Nintendo’s shares jumped on word that Pokemon was coming to the iPhone. But as it turned out, Nintendo, as a minority owner, had no influence on the decision, and it shot down speculation about its strategy, saying it “hasn’t changed and won’t change.”

Most of the opposition in developing for other platforms has to do with the business model.

For instance, the company is comfortable developing its own tablet-shaped controller for the Wii U, and it has its own mobile devices, like the 3DS, but it draws the line at free-to-play games.

“I’m not interested in offering software for free of charge,” Nintendo’s Global President Satoru Iwata told AllThingsD in June. “That’s because I myself am one of the game developers, who in the future wants to make efforts so the value of the software will be appreciated by the consumers.”

Iwata said the revenue that Zynga — and platform-makers like Facebook and Apple — is generating would not change his mind.

“If we are going to destroy the value of the game software — once we have done so, it’s a difficult job to recover from that situation,” he argued.

Nintendo did not disclose pricing for the Miiverse app.

Responding to consumer requests, Nintendo will provide two significant system updates that will help speed up the time it takes to launch software and return to the Wii U menu. The updates will be delivered in two stages: One in spring, and the next in summer.

Shortly after the spring update, Nintendo will launch a Virtual Console for the Wii U that will allow users to play classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super NES games.

Only a select number of NES and Super NES games will be available at first. Iwata said the games are being rewritten for the Wii U system, so it’s not possible to offer the entire collection at launch. Eventually, the game selection will include Game Boy Advance titles, and users will be able to save game progress and play right on the Wii U GamePad.

NES games will cost between $4.99 and $5.99, while Super NES games will fall in the $7.99 to $8.99 range. Discounted rates ($1 for NES titles and $1.50 for Super NES games) will be available for those who already purchased the Wii versions of the Virtual Console games.

Nintendo will also offer one game for 30 cents each month through July to celebrate the launch the Virtual Console for Wii U and the 30th anniversary of Nintendo’s Family Computer. Games include Balloon Fight, Kirby’s Adventure, Super Metroid and Donkey Kong.

As for new games for the Wii U, Iwata revealed that an HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is scheduled for this fall, along with a new Zelda game. A 3-D Mario and a Mario Kart racing game are also on tap, with more details coming at the E3 trade show in June. Other games on the schedule include one centering on the Yoshi character, Wii Party and a role-playing game from Monolith Soft.

In his presentation, Iwata apologized for the absence of any new Wii U titles for the months of January and February, but said that offering high-quality games was more important.

“Nintendo takes seriously its responsibility to offer a steady stream of new titles in the very early days of a new platform to establish a good lineup of software,” Iwata said. “On the other hand, we also firmly believe we have to offer quality experiences when we release new titles. Based on our software development schedules at the end of last year, we concluded we should spend a little more time to satisfy to our Nintendo standard of quality.”

The Nintendo Wii U launched in November, and the company has sold more than 890,000 units, according to NPD. Despite this, older competing consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation are still doing well, so game selection will be key for Nintendo.

Nintendo’s Wii U has managed to outperform the launch of its original Wii, at least in terms of revenue, but only because it costs more.

In the U.S., Nintendo sold 460,000 Wii U devices in December and more than 890,000 since it launched in mid-November, according to NPD, which tracks monthly sales figures for the videogame industry.

As a result, Nintendo said it recorded $300 million in revenue, which is more than the $270 million that the original Wii made at the same point in its life cycle.

But the original Wii, which launched in 2006, cost only $250, and today’s Wii U is setting players back between $300 and $350 apiece. So, the only reason it was able to exceed prior sales is because it upped the price — not because it sold more units.

That didn’t stop Nintendo of America’s EVP of Sales & Marketing Scott Moffitt from singing the company’s praises: “While the Wii launch established new benchmarks in the United States, Wii U has surpassed its predecessor in perhaps the most important category: revenue generation.”

Moffitt, however, did not comment on profits.

The Wii U has two editions: The deluxe offering that costs $350 and the basic offering for $300. The deluxe edition sold out at retail this holiday, and both editions were difficult to find after the Nov. 18 launch. But it was nothing like the launch of the Wii, which experienced shortages for months. Nintendo did run into a few hiccups at launch with customers experiencing long waits for mandatory software updates. Additionally, some of the device’s most notable features, like its TVii service, did not launch until later in the month.

Microsoft also reported strong revenue for the Xbox. The company holds the envious position of having the top-selling piece of hardware for the past 17 months straight. It sold 1.4 million units in December, or three times the number of Wii U’s sold. (When you add up all the hardware Nintendo sold, it totals more than 2.65 million units).

In all, Microsoft said, consumers spent more than $1.27 billion on the Xbox 360, including games, consoles and accessories.

Following the release of the NPD data, Sony did not immediately break out the PlayStation’s performance for the month of December.

Even so, the numbers are staggering, especially given the amount of pressure that smartphones and tablets are putting on the game console industry. But some impact can be seen. The amount of money being generated by mobile games and online gaming still has not been enough to offset the declines that the traditional console gaming market is seeing — at least that’s NPD Group’s position.

Historically, the research firm has monitored sales through purchases made at physical retail locations. In recent years, it has expanded its methodologies as more content is sold digitally over services like Valve’s Steam on the PC or as expansion packs inside of console games.

Overall, it reported for December that new physical retail sales of hardware, software and accessories totaled $3.2 billion, falling 22 percent year over year. It calculates that the physical channel accounts for nearly 50 percent of the total consumer spend on games.

When NPD considers revenue from other channels, such as used and rentals, and digital formats, like full games, micro-transactions, mobile apps and social gaming, its preliminary estimate is that consumer spending in December hit $4.1 billion in all. A final analysis of non-physical spending however, is expected to be released in February.

The research firm, which tracks spending at physical retail stores on a monthly basis, said last month was a particularly strong period for both hardware and software sales. In November, videogame sales totaled $2.6 billion, down 11 percent from the year-ago period, when sales totaled $2.9 billion — the smallest year-over-year decline so far in 2012.

There are two trends that are contributing to the drop off: One has to do with consumers shifting to other platforms, such as tablets and mobile phones, but the other has to do with how NPD tracks its data. It records sales that occur at retail, whereas a lot of consumers have started to purchase games digitally over the Internet. Still, looking at NPD’s data provides a broad picture of trends in the game industry.

Most telling last month was that sales have continued to be strong despite the fact that most of the hardware is six to seven years old, with the exception of Nintendo’s Wii U.

For comparison’s sake, NPD looked at how sales did last month compared to November 2005, which was the last time the industry began to transition between console generations. NPD Group Analyst Liam Callahan said retail game sales are nearly double what they were in November 2005. “This really demonstrates the long-term health of retail sales even as many platforms are quite late in their life cycles,” he said.

In addition, he said last month’s figures provide a very good sign of momentum going into the December holiday period.

Here are some of the findings from NPD’s November report, which tracked spending between Oct. 28 and Nov. 24:

• Nintendo sold more than 1.75 million total hardware units, including nearly 910,000 portable game units and more than 845,000 original Wii and Wii U units. In particular, it sold 425,000 Wii U units during the seven days captured in the data.
• Microsoft sold a jaw-dropping 1.26 million Xbox 360 units during the month, making it the No. 1 console maker for the 23rd consecutive month.
• November was the second-highest month of sales on a unit basis for the PS Vita since it launched, fueled by bundling third-party content with the hardware.
• Videogame software sales, including console and portable, totaled $1.43 billion, down 8 percent from the year ago period, when it totaled $1.6 billion. That represented the smallest unit decline this year, tied with August.
• Half of the software sales in November were for the Xbox 360, which gained 8 percentage points in market share since last November.
• Not surprising, Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Black Ops 2 was the top selling game during the month. It reported yesterday that it hit $1 billion in sales in just 15 days.

All combined, in just seven days the three console makers sold a jaw-dropping 1.98 million consoles in the U.S. — an astonishing accomplishment for an industry that is facing enormous pressure from emerging gaming platforms, like the iPad.

Today, Sony reported it sold more than 525,000 PlayStation 3 units over the past week, while Microsoft sold more than 750,000 Xbox 360 consoles to easily beat Wii U first-week sales of 400,000. In total, however, Nintendo sold 700,000 units, including both the Wii U and original Wii.

The week kicked off Sunday, Nov. 18, with the Wii U going on sale and ended Saturday, following Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

Nintendo’s sales of the Wii U were likely limited by the number of units it could manufacturer, with many U.S. retailers running out of inventory. Microsoft and Sony saw a lift from well-priced bundles that cost half as much as what Nintendo was charging for the Wii U, and in general, all three benefited from a trend in which consumers are using their videogame consoles for accessing other types of content through their TVs, including streaming media or music.

Sony said one PlayStation bundle, which cost $199, sold 15 percent more this year compared to 2011. Microsoft was selling similar Xbox bundles for $150. Essentially, the two manufacturers can afford price cuts like these, given that they are six years or more into their hardware lifecycles. In comparison, the brand-new Wii U costs $300 and $350, depending on the package.

In a blog post, Larry Hryb — a Microsoft spokesperson who blogs under his gamer tag, Major Nelson — reported that the Xbox 360 sold more than 750,000 consoles in the U.S. last week, easily beating Wii U first-week sales of 400,000. What’s more, it exceeds the 700,000 units Nintendo sold of the Wii U and the original Wii combined.

In some ways, however, the two numbers are not really comparable.

The Wii U, which launched last Sunday, costs between $300 and $350, and Microsoft is selling the Xbox for a number of configurations starting at half that price. Additionally, sales of the Wii U were limited by the number of units Nintendo could manufacturer, with many retailers reporting that inventory was sold out.

Microsoft said that the 750,000 consoles it sold between Sunday, Nov. 18 (when the Wii U launched) and Black Friday exceeded its internal forecasts. At that rate, the numbers are absolutely staggering, especially given the amount of pressure that phones and tablets are putting on the TV consoles as alternative gaming devices. Last month, Microsoft sold 270,000 Xbox units, making it the best-selling console in the U.S. at the time.

But access to streaming media and other entertainment is helping to drive sales of the older hardware. As Major Nelson pointed out today, Microsoft’s three-month Xbox Live Gold Subscription sales increased more than 50 percent, compared to the same week last year. On Sunday, its Xbox Live services — which include streaming video and multiplayer game play — were used by more than 14 million people, racking up more than 72 million hours worldwide. Compared to 2011, Microsoft has seen a 43 percent increase in U.S. hours logged on Xbox Live during the week of Black Friday.

I asked Sony for its sales figures for the past week, but the company has not responded to the request.

The new Nintendo Wii Mini will be available exclusively in Canada, starting Dec. 7. Priced at $100, it is aimed at first-time buyers who want to “jump in and experience” Wii games.

Unlike the original Wii, the Mini doesn’t have Internet capabilities and is not compatible with GameCube games. But the company says it can play more than 1,400 disc-based games, such as New Super Mario Bros. and Wii Fit Plus, and is compatible with most Wii accessories.

The system ships with a Wii Remote Plus and a nunchuck controller, and comes in a matte-black-and-red design.

It’s curious that the company chose to launch the system only in Canada. Nintendo said it had no additional information about bringing the device to other regions in the future.

While a cheaper, smaller system is great in theory, the original Wii costs just $30 more ($20 at some retailers, including Best Buy) and includes Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, so you’re getting more bang for your buck there.

So far, Nintendo has had a strong start to its holiday season. Just yesterday, Nintendo of America said that it sold 400,000 Wii units during the console’s first week on sale in the U.S. Meanwhile, heavy discounts drove sales on older systems, amounting to a total of 1.2 million devices sold over the last week.

Still, it remains to be seen whether Nintendo can continue this momentum beyond the holiday season.

The Japanese game company hit the ground running, with many retailers reporting that the next-generation console was sold out just hours after going on sale on Nov. 18.

In comparison, Nintendo sold more consoles last week than Microsoft was able to sell in an entire month. In October, Microsoft sold 270,000 Xbox units, making it the best-selling console in the U.S. at the time.

Today, Nintendo confirmed in an interview with CNET that sales for all of its hardware have been brisk during the busy holiday week.

Update: In a statement provided by Nintendo of America, it said that in addition to selling 400,000 Wii U units, Nintendo sold 300,000 original Wii consoles, 250,000 3DS portable gaming devices, and 275,000 of the older DS devices. In all, Nintendo sold 1.2 million devices, driven by the new hardware and heavy discounts on older devices.

So far, consumers have been undeterred by reports that the Wii U was missing some key features at launch, and that a mandatory software patch would take more than an hour for customers to download.

Nintendo is selling two variations of its console, ranging from $300 to $350, depending on the features.

Despite a strong start, it’s unclear how the console will perform over the long term. A report released by IHS Screen Digest earlier this month predicted that the Wii U would have a successful launch, but warned that maintaining momentum will be difficult.