Nintendo has posted a third consecutive annual loss following a year of poor Wii U sales.

Nintendo's net loss was 23.2 billion yen (NZ$263m), with net sales down 10 percent on last year. However, that’s an improvement on its January projection of a 35 billion yen (NZ$386 million) loss.

The company sold 2.7m Wii U consoles in the last 12 months, bringing the total sold to just 6.1m since its launch in November 2012.

At the same point in its life, the Wii had sold 24.45 million, the PlayStation 3 had sold 12.85 million, and the Xbox 360 8.3 million. Sony has already sold seven million PlayStation 4 consoles since November, and Microsoft has sent more than five million Xbox Ones to stores in the same time frame.

In fact, the Wii U is costing Nintendo money in Europe and North America because it is being sold at a loss and software sales – with which these losses are usually erased – are so low.

Nintendo reported that it had sold 4.16m copies of New Super Mario Bros. U, 2.17m of Mario 3D World, 1.76m of New Super Luigi U, and 1.22m of Zelda: Wind Waker HD.

However, overall Wii U software sales "showed slow growth", it said.

It plans to stimulate sales by releasing software that takes advantage of the console's NFC reader, and with the announcement that DS titles will come to the Wii U Virtual Console, among other ideas. It also has a couple of big releases on the horizon in Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros..

The company also mentioned a “quality of life" project that will create "a new platform business in enjoyable ways in a new field that is different from that of dedicated video game systems".

Sales of the 3DS were down on last year’s total, but the handheld has sold 43.3m worldwide, and another 12 million are expected to be sold in the next year.

On that platform, Pokémon X and Y sold 12.26m copies, while Luigi's Mansion 2, Mario & Luigi Dream Team and Zelda: A Link Between Worlds all sold two million copies each.

Nintendo expects to sell 3.6m Wii U consoles in the next year bringing the console’s total to just below 10m by April 2015.