Poor sales of Nintendo's Wii U console still have a negative impact on the company's profits, according to its consolidated financial highlights for the six months ending September 2013, where the company posted a 23.2 billion yen ($187 million) operating loss.

According to Nintendo, the Wii U still has a negative impact its profits mainly due to its markdown in the United States and Europe. Recording a gross profit of 62 billion yen, the company attributes the operating loss to its efforts in increasing Wii U sales by investing advertising, as well as conducting research and development for the console's software.

Last year, Nintendo reported that poor Wii U's sales were a contributing factor to the company's 5.8 billion yen operating loss for the nine months ending December 2012.

In the six month period, the Wii U hardware sold only 460,000 units worldwide, while Wii U software proved slightly more successful with sales of 6.3 million units. In reality, this is an improvement in the sales performance of the system. The Wii U sold only 160,000 units during its first quarter of the six month period, doubling sales in its second quarter.

Global sales of 3DS hardware and software reached 3.89 million and 27.38 million units. Nintendo points out that Pokémon X/Pokémon Y showed extremely strong initial sales when it launched worldwide earlier this month, which in turn increased the 3DS’ popularity. The Tomodachi Collection recorded 1.63 million units in sales in Japan since its release in April.

Since its release in June until Sept. 30, Animal Crossing: New Leaf sold roughly 2 million units in Europe and 2.49 million copies worldwide. The company reports that Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team" and "Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D also show "steady sales."

The company reports that overseas sales contributed 65.7 percent of total net sales of 196.5 billion yen for the period. Going forward, the company will accelerate digital distribution of Wii U and 3DS titles to reduce costs and increase profitability.