TOKYO — Nintendo said on Wednesday that it expected to sell far fewer units of its Wii U game console than it had anticipated, reducing the sales outlook for its flagship device just two months after its release.

Nintendo has a lot riding on the Wii U, the successor to the Wii, which revolutionized the gaming industry seven years ago with a casual approach that brought video games to new audiences. The company is banking on the Wii U to revive its fortunes after the disappointing introduction in 2011 of its hand-held gaming machine, the 3DS, which prompted the company to reduce its price sharply to stoke demand.

Nintendo executives had also said the Wii U would prove that dedicated game systems still had a future in a world now teeming with less expensive, more convenient mobile games played on smartphones and tablets.

The latest numbers from Nintendo are not promising. The company said that it had sold 3.06 million Wii U games and that it expected sales to reach just four million units through March, almost 30 percent less than a previous projection of 5.5 million.