“Our target this year is not one I am satisfied with,” he said at a briefing in Osaka, Japan. “Sales of the 3DS in Europe have not been as buoyant as those in Japan.”

Mr. Iwata did not, however, offer any suggestions of a shift in strategy and did not discuss any possible change to plans for the Wii U.

Yet what Nintendo faces is a fundamental shift in game-playing habits that analysts argue may require it to shrink its hardware business and instead look for profits for Super Mario and other game titles on devices built by other companies.

Its emerging rival is Apple, already the nemesis of Sony, the struggling Japanese titan. Apple’s seamless go-anywhere devices — like the iPhone, iPad and a games controller that is rumored to be planned — are positioning it to grab chunks of the game market where Nintendo once held sway.

In a report this month, Mr. Gibson of Macquarie pointed to a recent survey by MocoSpace, a Web site about mobile games. It asked 15,000 game players where they played; 53 percent said they played in bed, 41 percent in the living room, 72 percent commuting and 5 percent on the toilet.

Yet a game started on a Wii cannot be continued on a DS on the way to work or school. The Wii U, slated to go on sale during the year-end shopping season, does not address that convergence hurdle.

Nintendo will have to sell the new console for as much as $350 to break even, said Nanako Imazu, an analyst for the brokerage firm CLSA in Tokyo. That is $100 more than it charged for the Wii in 2006 and would outstrip the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360, which can be picked up for less than $300.