Wii U

Wii U sales dry up
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Just googled Wii U.
http://bgr.com/2013/01/18/nintendo-wii-u-sales-crisis-295918/


In just a week, the problems Nintendo’s (NTDOY) new home console is facing have cascaded into something sinister. The traditional post-New Year slump hit Nintendo’s home market in the week ending January 12 and exposed cruelly how weak the consumer interest in Wii U truly is. According to Famitsu, Wii U sales slumped from a pace of 70,000 per week to just 21,000. The ancient PlayStation 3 sold the exact same number of units, which is nothing short of a debacle for Nintendo. The hot portable console 3DS saw its sales slow down from 305,000 units to 106,000 units. This means that Nintendo’s portable machine is now outselling the brand new home console by a 5-to-1 margin in Japan.

No matter how weak the Wii U sales are now, they are likely to get worse. The launch dates of key games seem to be slipping from March quarter to June quarter, including the important Pikmin, Wario and Wii Fit franchises. The Wii U now must depend on Rayman and Lego City in coming months.

This is a scary prospect, because it now seems that Sony (SNE) is planning to unveil the PlayStation 4 in May and Microsoft (MSFT) is expected to announce the Xbox 720 in June. Nintendo rushed its console out in late 2012 to get a running start before the big guns of the home console industry grab the consumer interest with their new machines. That gambit may now be about to backfire in a spectacular manner. As demand for Wii U is already fizzling in Japan and key games slip from the first quarter of 2013, Wii U faces a very hard January-March period. Sony and Microsoft are then inevitably going to start leaking information about their new consoles in April-May time frame in the run-up to their big unveilings in the second half of the spring quarter.

The clock is ticking for Wii U. If consumers start smelling the scent of the grave emanating from the console just when Sony and Microsoft roll out their new gear, Wii U could face a sudden rejection in the market place by early summer. Nintendo needs some big new titles to revive its home machine very soon.

Those are horrible sales numbers.
 
Nintendo cuts Wii-U sales forecast

Nintendo has cut the sales forecast for its new Wii-U console, but still expects to make an annual profit thanks to the weaker yen.

It now predicts it will sell only four million Wii-Us in the year to March, down 27% from its previous forecast, after sales disappointed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21257536


New Wii Is No Fun for Nintendo


OKYO—Nintendo Co. 7974.OK -5.13% slashed its sales outlook in the wake of disappointing holiday demand for its new Wii U videogame console, which it had been banking on to rekindle consumer excitement.
"The business isn't firing on all cylinders. It had a bad Christmas," said David Gibson, a Tokyo-based senior analyst at Macquarie Securities. "We thought it was going to be bad, but this is even worse," said Mr. Gibson, who has an "underperform" rating on Nintendo shares.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578273120108154866.html
 
Where did it all go wrong for Nintendo?

ANALYSIS The Wii U is languishing in warehouses, and that's not good news for Nintendo


Cast your mind back to November 2006, when Nintendo unleashed the Wii to an unsuspecting public. Through a combination of word-of-mouth and a clever ad campaign, within a month the Wii had become so popular with gamers and non-gamers alike it was night-on impossible to find one in the shops.

>> Well, a month is up for the Wii U. It's not going to catch on.

There's no denying the Wii U hasn't had the best of starts, and things are going to get worse before they get better.

It's certainly going to be a huge struggle in the UK, which used to be a massive market for Nintendo and has now seemingly turned its back on it - there hasn't been a single Wii U game in the UK Top 40 games chart since Christmas.

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/where-did-it-all-go-wrong-for-nintendo-1128600

Q: Where did it all go wrong for the Wii U ?

A: Design. There is nothing exciting about the Wii U's entire concept from Day 1. It was doomed to fail from the very start.
 
Nintendo should have copied Xbox 360, just like Sony is

Sony hire suggests PS4 motion control plans

Sony's PS4 console, codenamed Orbis, may be getting motion controls similar to that of the Kinect platform used on rival Microsoft's Xbox 360 and upcoming Xbox 720 console.

Sony, which was one of the first console companies to get into the motion controlled gaming market with the release of its camera-based EyeToy for the PlayStation 2 in 2003, has telegraphed its intention to take controller-free gaming to the next level with the hiring of George Andreas from Microsoft, where he previously worked on the Kinect sensor project.

I was really hoping for the Wii U to combine the Wii Motion controllers and Kinect sensors into the Wii U. I think it could have been incredible. To me, it seemed like a natural improvement for the Motion controllers. If Nintendo survives and releases another console, the Wii 3 should have it.
 
The Wii was/is a niche item. It's success was built around people like me (who happen to have a PS3 because of it being a fine blu-ray player and streamer) who will not invest mass amounts of time to master a game. It was a great device to just ask a few friends over who have never played, fire it up, and it's a low learning curve for all. That and the low price tag for a good amount of fun made it very successful. I really think that they never competed against consumers in the PS3/Xbox market.

I have no time at all for gaming. I own a dozen PS3 games, some of them fitness which can be fun at home with the move (I own 4 controllers) and the simple driving, racing, two player games for fun you can have with friends and frequently for the kiddies in the family to keep them occupied. I don't have any of the "coolest" games except maybe Killzone3 which I got for practically nothing. I don't think that Nintendo is dead with the flopping of the WiiU but it will certainly shrink to its niche market instead of having been able to take advantage of the current opportunity to play in the higher end gaming niche.
 
The Wii was/is a niche item.
A niche items with huge sales.
The Wii U is doomed.

Wii U sold fewer than 60,000 units in the US last month
by Mark Tyson on 18 February 2013, 11:00

The Wii U appears to have suffered a spectacular post-Christmas sales slump, in the US at least. Data from market analysts at the NPD Group estimate that only 57,000 Wii U consoles were sold throughout the whole of the 50 states during January.

The figures, described as “shockingly low” by Yahoo gaming news reporters, are under half the number expected by analysts, even though Nintendo slashed Wii U sales forecasts right at the end of January. In addition January 2013 was a long month, as it contained a fiscal leap week, so numbers are even worse that they initially appear.

To put the Wii U sales in perspective we can look back at the Wii’s launch in 2007. In the second month following the Wii’s launch it sold 436,000 units. Also the ageing Microsoft Xbox 360 sold 281,000 units during January 2013 in the US, almost five times as many as the new Wii U.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told Yahoo that he thinks there are a number of reasons for the lukewarm response to the Wii U “First, we think that the console was misunderstood by many as a peripheral for the Wii; second, the price point for the Wii U is relatively high, and the launch was into a weak economy; and third, first party software support was thin, and third-party software was not sufficiently differentiated to convince many that they needed a Wii U as a replacement for their Xbox 360 or PS3.” To address the software support issue Nintendo is lining up a couple of new Mario games this year including the ever popular Mario Kart, a Luigi game and a Pikmin game.

The longevity of the Wii U as a viable “gen 4” system has also been brought into question recently as Nintendo execs were reportedly defending the rather slow CPU chosen for the console. Also EA said it was “not excited” about developing titles for Nintendo’s latest home console saying that “gen 4 is yet to come”.

Are these latest sales figures a warning sign for Sony and Microsoft, or do they show that there is a good opportunity for a true next-gen console? What can Nintendo do now?

source : http://hexus.net/gaming/news/industry/51821-wii-u-sold-fewer-60000-units-us-last-month/
 
I'm no stranger to these predictions, I run a game-centered site after all, but I feel like these are all a little too, "doom and gloom" versus what may happen over the course of the next year. Nintendo does realize they messed up with the launch, that much is evident post-share meeting and Nintendo Directs. I wouldn't count them out yet; they have historically bounced back time and time again.

With that said, my two biggest issues with the WiiU
  1. Bad idea to not only call it the WiiU, but make the console so similar in appearance to the original Wii. I can see why the average consumer would be confused. As a mater of fact, I imagine this scenario happened a lot this Christmas:

    Mother: My kid wants this WiiU thing.
    Clerk: Great! That will be $300 (or $350).
    Mother: What? For this tablet peripheral thing? Goodness, I'll just get him some games instead.
    Clerk: Well, it's not actually a peripheral. It's-
    Mother: That's OK, I'll take that Saint's Row game. It has a nice name, seems educational.
    Clerk: Ma'm...that's-
    Mother: Here's my card!

  2. Terrible first-party support out of the gate. Nintendo survives because they have the best first party lineup in the industry. Seriously, the Wii launched with Zelda Twilight Princess and Wii Sports - they got both the hardcore and the casual in one giant swoop. What do they do with the WiiU? Tag in a lot of third party support (mostly ports), a party game, and yet another, "New! Mario Bros". They needed a Legend of Zelda, a Mario Galaxy, something like that.
The sad thing is I've tried the WiiU, and, at least in my opinion, it really is a lot of fun to use. The problem is the software they have is anything but compelling at the moment.
 
I'm no stranger to these predictions, I run a game-centered site after all, but I feel like these are all a little too, "doom and gloom" versus what may happen over the course of the next year.

The bad launch is a minor factor in the Wii U failure.
Yes, it did add icing on top of the failure cake.

The Wii U's failure was the design. It's not Next Gen. The tablet idea is just not good. For me, it doesn't bring anything to the table. Nintendo should have known they needed to do something good. They needed to innovate. An xbox-live online experience would have helped (a bit) as someone mentioned.

For me a Wii + HD graphics + a NEXT GEN Kinect-like device + good online experience, was the way to go.

A next gen Kinect is a logical extension to the Wiimote. The fun of the Wii is moving the controller around adding other body parts into gameplay will make the games even more immersive.

Nintendo decided to try to capture part of the hard core gamer market. And that strategy is failing - badly.

I think Xbox 720 could be a big hit. I hope they double down on Kinect and make it great (ie. multiple Kinects to capture very accurate data).

I'm not sure the Wii U has any chance at this stage. People are probably just going to take a pass on the Wii U console.
 
Data from market research firm NPD claimed that the Wii U only managed to move roughly 57,000 units in the United States during the month of January. Unfortunately for Nintendo, sales didn’t improve a great deal in February. NPD says that the Wii U only managed roughly 64,000 for February.

For the sake of comparison, the Xbox 360, which is expected to be replaced later this year by Microsoft’s latest hardware offering, managed to sell 302,000 in the United States alone.

Although February saw a very slight sales increase for the Wii U, the extra sales didn’t do much to help the company recover from January’s horrendous sales figures. As Gamasutra reported last month, the Wii U’s sales figures were among the worst in decades.

While the Wii U may not be getting off to a good start, it’s far too early to say that the console is doomed. Nintendo has promised that it will aggressively support the console with titles from first and third parties alike, many of which will be releasing this year. Read more

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The WiiU is not going to catch on. People are just waiting for Xbox 720 / PS4. This ill conceived console was D.O.A from the moment I heard their lackluster plan for it.
Hard to believe the gamer changer that was the Wii is followed up by something so terrible. Stick a fork in the Wii U, it's done.
 
Ouch: Wii outsells Wii U since its launch

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Apr 2013 0:08 [source]

Nintendo revealed its quarterly earnings this week, and it is becoming clear that the Wii U is a disaster for the company.
For the fiscal year ended March 31st, the company's revenue was just ¥635.422 (£4.2bn), 5 percent below their own forecast. Net income collapsed to ¥7,099m (£420.8m) for the most recent quarter, leading to a yearly loss of ¥60,863m (£403m), the company's second loss in as many years following a decade of strong profitability.

Nintendo specifically cited the yen and weaker than expected sales of the Wii U for their results.

The Wii U has only sold 3.45 million units since launch in November. The old and market saturated Wii sold 3.98 million units in the same time period. For the last quarter, only 300,000 Wii U were sold, a devastatingly low number.

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The Wii is outselling the Wii U !!!!!
That is EXTREMELY bad news.
 
Ouch: Wii outsells Wii U since its launch

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Apr 2013 0:08 [source]

Nintendo revealed its quarterly earnings this week, and it is becoming clear that the Wii U is a disaster for the company.
For the fiscal year ended March 31st, the company's revenue was just ¥635.422 (£4.2bn), 5 percent below their own forecast. Net income collapsed to ¥7,099m (£420.8m) for the most recent quarter, leading to a yearly loss of ¥60,863m (£403m), the company's second loss in as many years following a decade of strong profitability.

Nintendo specifically cited the yen and weaker than expected sales of the Wii U for their results.

The Wii U has only sold 3.45 million units since launch in November. The old and market saturated Wii sold 3.98 million units in the same time period. For the last quarter, only 300,000 Wii U were sold, a devastatingly low number.

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The Wii is outselling the Wii U !!!!!
That is EXTREMELY bad news.

Any news on Mario Kart coming to the Wii U? Perhaps people are holding out for the bigger, more popular games to be released?
 
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