Those numbers are absolutely historical in how bad they are if true. I just can't count all of the failings Nintendo has done with the Wii U, starting with the name, starting with the price, starting with the concept, continuing with the lack of marketing presence for 8 months, massive drought of games, delayed launch period games, et al.


What are Wii U owners buying if Mario's numbers are so low? Or is GameStop just filled to the brim with used Wii U systems?


Yikes. If only I could be Satoru Iwata and the crew at NCL and have MY head in the sand for years and years.

I wouldn't mind if Nintendo went handheld only...


...But I've been a handheld-only gamer for the past decade.  :-X

215,000 sales for Mario in the span of a week isn't bad, so long as they keep coming. 230,000 Wii Us, on the other hand, is very, very bad. People often argue that Nintendo's at their best when they're desperate and their back's against the wall; well, I don't think that's been more true than it is right now for a long time.

When I read the line "Through September, Nintendo sold 850,000 units worldwide, meaning Nintendo still needs to sell over 7.5 million systems in December to reach their annual target of 9 million in sales" it almost sounds like dry comedy.  It reads like sarcasm.  Over 7 million in one month?  Has ANY system ever sold that?  To do that the Wii U would have to switch from being a flop to the most insanely popular console ever made overnight.  This is like when a team is really having a bad season and then you look at the standings and realize that they could make the playoffs... if they went a 30 game win streak to end the season.

Would be great if Nintendo's next console is a high powered handheld that'll take over both their portable and home business. Lately I've been more into mobile and handheld gaming. For example, I've starting getting into Sony handhelds and have started buying some of them (including the Xperia Play). I really like how Sony designs their handhelds aesthetically and internally, despite a couple stupid shortcomings (mainly proprietary stuff like memory).
I still think Nintendo's best handheld effort was the Game Boy Micro, no matter how much of a failure it was. Would be great if their next handheld is something amazing, instead of a minor step up from the previous generation like the 3DS was.

Isn't the 9M goal a total install base through the fiscal year? Ending in March? Weren't worldwide sales sitting at 3.5M this summer? This sounds more like a blogspam article than a NWR piece.

Don't you mean by the end of March 2014? That is when their fiscal year ends, after all.

I would be speechless except for this speech I'm about to make on RFN.

Compared to previous Wii U games and system sales, these are good numbers. Compared to what Nintendo products have done last generation and on the handheld side, these are kinda low numbers. I guess I'll choose to look at this as "glad the Wii U is improving" instead of the alternative.

There's actually some comfort in knowing that the next RFN will be epic.

Doom :(


Well, I will be looking forward to the few big games, some small digital titles and all the Virtual Console stuff when I pick up a Wii U for X.

I am just looking forward to the games Nintendo will release next year. The numbers do look bad, but am sure Nintendo's hardware department is already hard at work given the failure of the Wii U. The Wii U hasn't gotten an easy time from the press, but i believe all that has happen is 100 percent Nintendo's fault, its like they though, lets do nothing and ride off the Wii's brand name.

So Sony sold over 4 times more PS4s in a single day (and Microsoft isn't far behind with the Xbone) than Nintendo sold Wii Us in what's easily been their best month software-wise, in a month where the gaming media's been slobbering over Mario 3D World and mocking the next-gen launch lineups? Pathetic.

If I remember correctly, Iwata said they'd be re-evaluating their support for the Wii U pending the holiday sales results.  Well, I think we just got confirmation that Nintendo will be going handheld-only from here on out, save for a few Wii U stragglers here and there.

It's a pity that Mario 3D World sold so poorly. It's a genuinely good game that does more with the Mario franchise than Nintendo's done in a decade.  Unfortunately, it's shackled to the Wii U, so I can't say I'm surprised that it more or less failed, comparatively speaking.

Nintendo moving to only one revenue stream with handhelds and being rid of consoles is incredibly risky. What happens when the handheld line starts to peter out? Then what? No, Nintendo needs to just ride this out, hope Wii U gets to a point where it stops taking a loss on hardware, and try to get next gen right. Unfortunately, with the current structure and attitude of the company, I don't think it will do better next time either. Still, Nintendo has plenty in its war chest for subsequent console sales failures.

They could always make games for Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Android, Google, Valve, and Oculus platforms. :D

You like it more than the Galaxy games?

The lack of waggle automatically makes it better than the Galaxy games, without question.

On a side note, to all the people who boasted the 3DS' implausible recovery was proof that the Wii U was going to bounce back: how's that working out for you?

It's Schadenfreudolicious! Why do ask? ;)

You win some; you lose some.

It could have happened. But Nintendo Nintendo-ed it.

December is the month to watch! 215,000 in a week for mario is solid and while the console numbers are bad, 1 could extrapolate the number for an entire month w mario should show promise.


This makes me think that smash will get here in the spring and whatever else they wanted to add will become DLC.


(9million sold by march 2014 huh, good luck with that)

3DS showed that a comeback could be done. It wasn't proof that a Wii U comeback absolutely would happen. I don't see how you could use one thing's performance as proof of another thing's performance, especially when the things being discussed are 3DS and Wii U as their circumstances couldn't be more different. Nintendo dominates the handheld market and its main problem was the price. The solution was easy. With Mario Kart 7 (and Super Mario 3D Land) less than six months away, Nintendo dropped the price to around where it should have been to begin with.

Wii U has significantly less going for it as well as much, much stronger competition. A sharp turnaround for Nintendo in the console space would be making Wii U profitable which I still believe is entirely possible. After a year, are they still taking a loss on hardware (even with the price drop)? If Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. For Wii U released in the same year can't improve sales, sure, Wii U would be in some trouble.

Sakurai has already said there are no plans for DLC. That doesn't mean there won't be DLC ever, but I doubt he's rushing the game then adding what was cut as DLC.

Nine million units sold by the end of the fiscal year was not going to happen, even if Mario Kart 8 somehow sneaks into Mach 2014. The first day of Spring next year is March 20 according to the Google. That would give Wii U a major boost headed into the next fiscal year, but I don't see them hitting nine million units sold.

At this point, who is really surprised? There seems to be plenty of pile on in the thread... but were people really expecting Wii U to move that many units in a month that was absolutely dominated (at retail, online, in media) by the release of two competing consoles?
Maybe you guys were all more optimistic than I was... but this seems pretty much par for the course if you ask me.  Hopefully December sales will look better for software, although even there I'm not holding my breath.


As long as the western release of X doesn't get cancelled due to low sales potential, I'm still happy with my Wii U purchase.

To spin this in a positive way, the 187 of us who own a Wii U have a real collector's item on our hands. Might not be worth as much as say a Virtual Boy right now, but we do already own Virtual Boy 2!

3DS is going strong. Nintendo at E3 should say something to the extent of, "Smash Bros in holiday 2014, and then we are going with one strong pillar in the 3DS/2DS family!" And they'll spin it and give us a Cranky Kong screen saver and we'll all be happy. Right, right?

In regards to the 3DS bouncing back and the Wii U not being able to, the 3DS had no obvious shortcomings in it's actual design.  It was overpriced and the games weren't there but both of those were fixable.  The 3DS was a logical step up from the DS.  It helps that in the handheld market Nintendo is the trend setter.

With the Wii U I feel the issue was always in the actual design.  It was PS360 gen hardware released a year before the PS4 and XB1 were expected to come out.  It was a conventional follow-up to the Wii but not a conventional console for the timing of its release and unlike the handheld market the competition is really fierce.  It's not an issue of price or a shortage of games but rather that the product itself is not what the market wants and Nintendo can't fix that.

I'm not certain if it's more Mario, or the fact that Nintendo has finally started advertising for the damn thing, that Nintendo's finally selling Wii Us.  I can't see one show I watch on tv without seeing that Wii U Commercial where the girl is telling the kids on the couch how they'll convince their parents to buy one, specifically stating it's a new console.

Regardless, that seems like an abysmal number leading up into the holidays.  I really hope Nintendo doesn't exit the console space.  Wii U isn't without issues, but it's a unique console that in my mind has potential for some neat gaming experiences.

I'm starting to wonder if it would have been better for Nintendo to go the PS4 route - put all the cost of their console in beefy specs, and leverage the 3DS XL as the device for off-TV play like Sony has done with the Vita.

The best thing to come out of the WiiU was HD, Miiverse, and a (nearly) unified eShop. Nintendo won't bomb the next console...this one was a very good learning experience that will have provided some significant institutional momentum.

Resistive screen that's a little murky? Eh
Same slow trickle of Virtual Console? Well...
Third party multiplats have mostly been compromised on WiiU and will probably dry up in a year? Dang.
And other complaints.
But.... but... here's what REALLY concerns me about the WiiU: WHERE ARE THE QUIRKY JAPANESE THIRD PARTY GAMES? (I know: they're on mobile and/or F2P) Where are all the middle-budget games that made the Wii amusing and distinct? About 35 of my Wii collection is Nintendo-published, while about 55 of my Wii games are third-party published. But it's not even a question of "Where is Xseed on WiiU?", it's a question of, where are games at all that Xseed would localize? And where are the solid efforts like Shattered Memories, Overlord DL, Dead Space: Extraction, etc? They aren't down to a trickle. They are completely absent!

Perfect time for the release of the long awaited Sadness...

Seems to be working out. Wii U is starting to sell more units again compared to the past few months after launch so looks like a bounce back is beginning.

This is part of the Holiday Bump, more specifically, the Black Friday Effect.
If this last through January and into Feb 2014, then you have the beginnings of a "bounce back".

Thanks Captain Buzzkill!

Not that I'm trying to say these sales are great by any means, but...

PS4 Launch
XBox One Launch
Crazy 360 sales (Walmart had 360s for $99.  We literally sold a pallet of them at my tiny store)
Crazy PS3 sales (Again, Walmart had PS3s for $149 and really good bundles for $199)

Technophiles and the "gotta have its!" all wanted the new systems while parents looking for cheap deals went for the old stuff.  I don't think a single retailer had any Wii U deals going on.

I'm honestly curious how PS4 and Xbox One will perform in Jan-Feb-Mar

Both will probably do fairly well considering both have major games releasing around that time (Titanfall for the Xbone & Infamous: Second Son for the PS4). Honestly, the dangerous period of time for both systems is during the Summer of 2014, where neither console really has anything right now.

Nintendo step up your game!!!

Keep it going Nintendo, you are doing it right!  :cool;

They'll sell a lot more if Newegg keeps selling them for $219
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3G616K1046&RandomID=517072093323313520131216120602


comes with skylanders AND Nintendo Land