Hardware Wii U sales top 8 million worldwide

[shinkodachi]

however how meaningful is this to the third party publishers if MOST best selling games on Wii U are only nintendo games?

At this point it looks like the general consensus is to get a Nintendo console for only Nintendo games and either a Sony or Microsoft console for everything else. And Nintendo alone is to blame for that perception. Wii U launched with no exciting games and it took very long for any must have games to be released. Not to mention Nintendo still hasn't entirely delivered on its promises with the Wii U GamePad. By now people already lost interest and this was greatly reflected in the media. The best opinion pieces defending the Wii U say things like "it's the best place to play Nintendo games" and that's exactly what the Wii U is. Nothing more, hopefully nothing less.

 

[eriol33]

too bad for nintendo. I really love to buy a Wii, but the price tag is still ridiculous considering the software library. I hope the price drops soon though, or just ditch that stupid gamepad. I think that gamepad alone is the reason of Wii U's failure. had they sticked to wiimote or classic controllers, wii u probably would have had cheaper price and sold better.

 

[LightyKD]

too bad for nintendo. I really love to buy a Wii, but the price tag is still ridiculous considering the software library. I hope the price drops soon though, or just ditch that stupid gamepad. I think that gamepad alone is the reason of Wii U's failure. had they sticked to wiimote or classic controllers, wii u probably would have had cheaper price and sold better.

The gamepad isn't bad but you are right about the damn price. The console needs to be dropped to 250 and game prices need to drop to 40. The Wii U's current pricing is horrible.

 

[trumpet-205]

Not to mention Nintendo still hasn't entirely delivered on its promises with the Wii U GamePad.

I'm still waiting on GCN VC on Wii U. Nintendo promised GameCube VC before Wii U launch and still nothing.

 

[bowser]

Your figures assume only members of GBAtemp hack their consoles, it doesn't figure in all the other hacking communities who are also interested in owning/hacking a Wii U.

Actually I did mention it. Please see my post again. I said including other hacking communities and lurkers can pull the number to 1% or maybe 2% at the max.

 

[LightyKD]

Actually I did mention it. Please see my post again. I said including other hacking communities and lurkers can pull the number to 1% or maybe 2% at the max.

Actually that 1-2% figure seems about right. I remember reading something a while back about the number of downloads and installs for the Homebrew Channel and I thought I saw a figure within the hundred thousands. -a very small number compared to the hundred million Wii consoles sold.

 

[Nathan Drake]

The problems with the perception of Nintendo consoles goes back to the N64. Nintendo fucked up then (I believe the big mistake was sticking with cartridges) and third parties jumped ship. They never made it a point to go back, especially when in the following generation, the PS2 turned into the profit making machine and the Gamecube ultimately barely turned a profit for Nintendo. The Wii got third party support, but 99% of it was shovelware bullshit trying to cash in on the casual crowd and their general ignorance to quality gaming and quality game companies, as for many, they just wanted the super casual stuff. The other 1% was loaded down with watered down ports of games that were far superior on either the PS3 or 360. With the Wii U, we simply saw a return to how third parties have felt about Nintendo consoles for over 15 years now. Due to third parties ignoring Nintendo, third party releases tend to perform poorly on Nintendo consoles in the modern day. Nintendo has built a userbase of Nintendo gamers that buy almost exclusively Nintendo first party games. If you were a third party that knew you'd be damn lucky if your game even approached the numbers that first party games sell, would you really want to develop on the console to begin with? Especially these days, trial and error with a console can be very expensive and generally isn't worth it.

Nintendo tried to promise a lot of things with the Wii U, like making promises that they'd be going back to trying to appeal to actual gamers once more while securing content that "hardcore" gamers would like. I guess they forgot that third parties still wanted nothing to do with them, and on their own, they are relatively incapable of turning out something that isn't brightly colored and cutesy with the exception (sometimes) being Zelda, where usually at least Ganondorf meets a grisly end. I guess the point I'm making though is that anybody that actually expected third party support to appear in droves on the Wii U was clearly unaware of Nintendo's history. Like articles say, and as they will always say, Nintendo consoles are almost exclusively good for Nintendo games and generally little else.

As for blaming the controller, those of you that say that are partially correct. The problem isn't so much the price caused by the gamepad though as Nintendo's ridiculous name for the system and their focus on the gamepad that they are slowly realizing was a huge mistake. They can't just turn their back on the gamepad now though, as even if it might mean more sales, they don't want to risk losing the software sales to their 8 million current customers who would feel cheated and want compensation. Even then, what controller do you include? Do you further confusion over the device by tossing in a Wii remote? Do you toss in a more standard looking controller? Nintendo has lost where the gamepad is concerned. It's now a curse that has caused confusion and high prices for a system that otherwise should not cost what it does and that has likely lost many a sale to consumers who couldn't actually figure out what the Wii U was, many thinking it was just a tablet controller add-on for the Wii.

So I would say the gamepad itself wasn't necessarily a bad idea, but the way Nintendo executed presenting and using it was an awful one. The fact that it's driving the price up so high is pretty bad though. Without it, Nintendo could easily cut $50 to $75 from the price tag. A shame they've made it an inseparable part of the Wii U system.

The Wii U feels a lot like the Vita. Both Nintendo and Sony are doing the bare minimum for their consoles, and otherwise are giving the impression that they are more than ready to move on to something new.

As for Wii U GCN VC, um, I have a question there. I know the Wii U is stronger than the PS3, but the PS3 had trouble emulating PS2 games even with each one using an emulator specially coded to run the individual game the best it could on the system. The PS2 classics are few, and they are very hit or miss on how well they play (hence why HD collections worked out so well for the most popular PS2 series). With that said, the Gamecube was stronger than the PS2 by a fair amount, so with that in mind, wouldn't the Wii U have a lot of issues pulling off GCN emulation well, close to the level of issue that the PS3 has had with PS2? Even if Nintendo was competent with their VC, considering how slowly they've added any content to the Wii U VC in general, did anybody think that they would actually take the time necessary to not only get GCN games working, but actually add any, especially after sales slowed to a crawl? Nintendo did nothing but promise a pipe dream with that one. I doubt even they knew if they could pull it off or not when they promised that one.

 

[Taleweaver]

Yes...this is exactly the reason why sales figures aren't considered news. Not only is it something that you can submit on a weekly basis, but threads like this really prove how much people live in different realities.

Person 1: Yeeeeey! 8 million sales! Whooo!!! Nintendo's console is looking great!
Person 2: Booooh! 8 million sales! Fuck this!!! Nintendo's console is a sinking ship!


So it's 8 million. How's that compared to the competition? What does it say about popularity? How many people are happy with their product and still use it? How does it compare to the overall line of sales*? The answer: that article doesn't mention ANYTHING about that. The article (if you insist on calling it that) is saying roughly as much as "some guy bought a console". But for some reasons, I doubt an article like that would create a shitstorm of pro-wiiu vs anti-wiiu posts.





*at least trumpet-205 gives some data on this one to put it into perspective.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Yes...this is exactly the reason why sales figures aren't considered news. Not only is it something that you can submit on a weekly basis, but threads like this really prove how much people live in different realities.

Person 1: Yeeeeey! 8 million sales! Whooo!!! Nintendo's console is looking great!
Person 2: Booooh! 8 million sales! Fuck this!!! Nintendo's console is a sinking ship!


So it's 8 million. How's that compared to the competition? What does it say about popularity? How many people are happy with their product and still use it? How does it compare to the overall line of sales*? The answer: that article doesn't mention ANYTHING about that. The article (if you insist on calling it that) is saying roughly as much as "some guy bought a console". But for some reasons, I doubt an article like that would create a shitstorm of pro-wiiu vs anti-wiiu posts.





*at least trumpet-205 gives some data on this one to put it into perspective.

It isn't about views on the Wii U itself but that the 8m in two years is bad. It doesn't matter if you're happy with the console if the company making the console and developing pretty much every quality release is unhappy with its performance. All I've seen is people justifying exactly why the Wii U has underperformed, and I haven't seen any blatant Wii U bashing. Unfulfilled promises, a lack of third parties, the gamepad, all are very relevant to the discussion of the Wii U and its performance in terms of sales.

 

[Bladexdsl]

mario saves the day once again

 

[Hielkenator]

Nevertheless, great console.
Shame for the lack of 3rd party, but still awesome console, it just feel so friendly and games ( were ) are cheap!

Okay if you want GTA and alike get a 360, ps3, One, PS4. ( like me )
But remember, Nintendo games are always the best of the best!
Even now modern games most of the time feel shallow compared to some of the best Wii titles.

Also remeber that you are in fact purchasing a Wii U system + a Wii system.
If you take the time to softmod the Wii side ( vWii ) you basicly buy a MULTI Console system, tapping into the emulation possibilties.

You cannot go wrong if you like video games I think.
Also NO OTHER CONSOLE WILL GIVE YOU THE AMOUNT OD CONTROL OPTIONS RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX.
Mind blowing really.

The gamepad isn't bad but you are right about the damn price. The console needs to be dropped to 250 and game prices need to drop to 40. The Wii U's current pricing is horrible.

Well in here in the netherlands it has been below the 200 euro mark for about 1 year now.
Where do you live????

I missed out on the initial release batch of consoles due to logistic problems.
Now I am glad, since I bought mine for 199,- euro last year, including 2 games, NintendoLand and NSMB Wii U...

I do not get how you came up with those prices you mention.
As of Now I own almost all Wii U games, never paid more than 20 bucks on any of them except DKC TF.
All game around or under 10 euro mark, wich is cheap in my book.
You just have to know where to look at the right moment.

 

[shinkodachi]

Nintendo did nothing but promise a pipe dream with that one. I doubt even they knew if they could pull it off or not when they promised that one.

Actually, GameCube Virtual Console is technically very possible. Where the PS3 struggled with PS2 emulation was due to significant architectural difference that the Wii U and GameCube don't suffer from. That's why early PS3 models actually incorporated PS2 hardware to virtualize (not emulate) PS2 games. Later software emulations and PS2 Classics releases used the Cell's computational power to "translate" PS2 games to a compatible format. Since this is done on the fly, it's hit and miss and the reason why there aren't many PS2 Classics releases.

I said it somewhere else that, at a very simplified level, a Wii U is essentially a Wii times three (as in the number of processor cores) and a Wii is essentially a faster GameCube. Nintendont is the perfect proof of this as it natively runs (virtualizes) GameCube games on Wii U. If vWii had MIOS and the disc drive supported the smaller 8cm discs, you'd be able to boot GameCube games directly on the Wii U.

 

[shinkodachi]

Well in here in the netherlands it has been below the 200 euro mark for about 1 year now.
Where do you live????

LightyKD is probably in the US, so 250 USD in roughly 205 euros. In Finland the Wii U sells for 320 euros at a minimum since the basic 8GB white model has been discontinued here and you'd be hard pressed to find it on store shelves. Your only option is to buy the deluxe/premium 32GB black bundle. That's not good considering the PS4 sells for 399 euros locally. Pricing varies greatly from region to region, you should keep that in mind. It's really no wonder there are few Wii U owners in Finland since you can get a PS4 for only 80 euros (roughly 100 USD) more. If you wait for sales, the PS4 is probably even cheaper than the Wii U in Finland (e.g. I bought my PS4 for 299 euros, so that's 20 euros / 25 USD cheaper than my Wii U). And there are almost never any sales on Nintendo consoles or games. Case in point, GameStop just kicked off an end of year sale with lots of discounts for PS4 / Xbox One bundles and games, even Skylanders figures. But zero sales for Nintendo products. Zero. So again, my point is, the regional availability and pricing of the Wii U sucks. It may be cheaper in other parts of the world, but at least here in Finland it's very expensive and hard to justify.

 

[Bladexdsl]

Okay if you want GTA and alike get a 360, ps3, One, PS4. ( like me )
.

don't need to do that it's on the PC

 

[LightyKD]

LightyKD is probably in the US, so 250 USD in roughly 205 euros. In Finland the Wii U sells for 320 euros at a minimum since the basic 8GB white model has been discontinued here and you'd be hard pressed to find it on store shelves. Your only option is to buy the deluxe/premium 32GB black bundle. That's not good considering the PS4 sells for 399 euros locally. Pricing varies greatly from region to region, you should keep that in mind. It's really no wonder there are few Wii U owners in Finland since you can get a PS4 for only 80 euros (roughly 100 USD) more. If you wait for sales, the PS4 is probably even cheaper than the Wii U in Finland (e.g. I bought my PS4 for 299 euros, so that's 20 euros / 25 USD cheaper than my Wii U). And there are almost never any sales on Nintendo consoles or games. Case in point, GameStop just kicked off an end of year sale with lots of discounts for PS4 / Xbox One bundles and games, even Skylanders figures. But zero sales for Nintendo products. Zero. So again, my point is, the regional availability and pricing of the Wii U sucks. It may be cheaper in other parts of the world, but at least here in Finland it's very expensive and hard to justify.

Here in the states and at Gamestop (our biggest game retailer), the Wii U bundle with Super Mario 3D World is USD $299.99. Comparatively the XBox One Assassin's Creed Unity bundle is $349.99 AND it comes with a FREE $50 gift card. I love Nintendo but at those prices, it's kinda hard to justify getting a Wii U. Sure, you can buy a refurbished 8GB bundle for 229.99 USD but unless you're like me and wanted a white Wii U, chances are, you're going after the console with more internal storage space. Quite frankly, Nintendo fucked up big time with their pricing and advertising. Hell, the only reason why I have a Wii U was because my console was 99 on eBay and I still had to spend an extra 20 on a AC adapter and and extra 100 on the gamepad. Nintendo's pricing sucks ass and I'm stuck waiting on sales just to pick up more Wii U games. I seriously can't wait till the console is hacked. Maybe then the burden wont be as bad as it is now.
'

 

[trumpet-205]

As for Wii U GCN VC, um, I have a question there. I know the Wii U is stronger than the PS3, but the PS3 had trouble emulating PS2 games even with each one using an emulator specially coded to run the individual game the best it could on the system. The PS2 classics are few, and they are very hit or miss on how well they play (hence why HD collections worked out so well for the most popular PS2 series). With that said, the Gamecube was stronger than the PS2 by a fair amount, so with that in mind, wouldn't the Wii U have a lot of issues pulling off GCN emulation well, close to the level of issue that the PS3 has had with PS2? Even if Nintendo was competent with their VC, considering how slowly they've added any content to the Wii U VC in general, did anybody think that they would actually take the time necessary to not only get GCN games working, but actually add any, especially after sales slowed to a crawl? Nintendo did nothing but promise a pipe dream with that one. I doubt even they knew if they could pull it off or not when they promised that one.

GCN VC is very much doable with ease. See GameCube, Wii, and Wii U are essentially the same system with different speed. It is like having 3 PCs, one running on Pentium 4, another on Core 2, and the last one on Core i7.

This is the reason why Wii has BC with GCN and Wii U has BC with Wii. Nintendo essentially took the previous system and beefed it up to maintain BC and to keep R&D cost down.

On the other hand PS3 is completely different than PS2. Earlier Sony included almost the entire PS2 hardware on PS3 simply to keep BC. Later they tried to remove some of them and use partial emulation, which didn't turn out so well.

 

[Nathan Drake]

GCN VC is very much doable with ease. See GameCube, Wii, and Wii U are essentially the same system with different speed. It is like having 3 PCs, one running on Pentium 4, another on Core 2, and the last one on Core i7.

This is the reason why Wii has BC with GCN and Wii U has BC with Wii. Nintendo essentially took the previous system and beefed it up to maintain BC and to keep R&D cost down.

On the other hand PS3 is completely different than PS2. Earlier Sony included almost the entire PS2 hardware on PS3 simply to keep BC. Later they tried to remove some of them and use partial emulation, which didn't turn out so well.

Thanks, and thanks as well to shinkodachi. I derped. I knew why the PS3 had issues with PS2 but I was posting when I should have been sleeping. I didn't know the Nintendo line was so similar from the Gamecube forward, but I suppose I should have been able to infer that based on the Wii's capabilities as a Wii/GCN machine and the fact that the Wii U can run vWii with ease.

So basically, it does just boil down to Nintendo not understanding the importance of their system's online shop, and not utilizing it for increased sales despite the benefits that would come from relatively little effort.

 

[shinkodachi]

So basically, it does just boil down to Nintendo not understanding the importance of their system's online shop, and not utilizing it for increased sales despite the benefits that would come from relatively little effort.

This precisely.

Seeing as Nintendo's products are in fact a niche among the competition, I have to say 8 million units in 2 years looks good. If we count out the average that's just 77K every week. They're barely moving 10K in Japan every week (on average). In that light the numbers are good. In any other light the performance is crap and Nintendo can do little about it now.