Nintendo Wii U console sales on the rise after Mario Kart 8, but Nintendo still making a loss

Wii U console sales have skyrocketed over the last financial quarter thanks to the massive success of hotly anticipated racing game Mario Kart 8 . In Nintendo's latest financial report , the company reveals it sold 510,000 consoles globally between April and June this year, which is a huge improvement on the 160,000 consoles it sold during the same period in 2013.

The main driver behind the huge surge in console sales was Mario Kart 8, which sold 2.82 million units during its first month on the shelves. The fastest selling Wii U game to date is the first entry in the series on Nintendo's latest home console, taking design elements from previous entries and adding a whole host of new content - as well as greatly improved visuals.

In total, 4.39 million units of Wii U software were sold during the quarter, along with 820,000 3DS consoles and 8.57 million units of 3DS software. Unfortunately, this still wasn't enough to stop Nintendo from posting an overall loss of 9.4 billion yen (approximately £54 million). This is in spite of its combined sales figure of 74.6 billion yen (approximately £431 million).

That said, Nintendo still expects "robust profits" from the Nintendo 3DS thanks to its upcoming pair of Pokemon titles (Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire), which are due to be released this November. Despite being remakes of previous entries in the series, Nintendo's portable hardware has typically always seen a sales spike surrounding the launch of any new Pokemon game.

The company is also hoping to further stimulate Wii U sales with the release of its Amiibo figures for upcoming four player brawler Super Smash Bros, along with key titles such as Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2 and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. With all this in the pipeline, Nintendo has made no revision to its current financial forecast for this fiscal year, which was announced on May 7th.