| justinian said:
Using the UK as a hallmark is just a way to highlight the wii u's performance at it's lowest. Even if the wii u is losing in the UK to the xbone and PS4, in the far larger and more important European market it is holding it's own against a brand new xbox one which is easily available in that region. Based on vgcharts last sales chart the xbone is was only just ahead in Europe, regardless of the UK sales. If this pattern continues wii u won't need the UK, but need to apeal more to the percentage of the other 440 million people in the EU that buy consoles. I'd would rather push for good sales in Europe and poor sales in the UK as oppose to good sales in the UK and poor sales in Europe as is the case with XBone. If Nintendo can achieve this they will at least be in a better place. |
It's not like ignoring the UK will somehow be advantageous for the Wii U in mainland Europe. Tastes in games are relatively similar across the continent. Improving sales in the UK won't magically give it poor sales in Europe.
Also, the UK isn't really the Wii U at its lowest. In 2012 the Wii U's market share in the UK was equal to that in Germany, and only behind France among the countries Nintendo gave data on. Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, and Belgium all saw the Wii U with lower market shares. For the first quarter of calendar 2013 Germany pulled slightly ahead while France fell back closer to the UK. The other 4 countries were still behind the UK. In the two quarters covering April-September the Wii U's market share in the UK was actually ahead of its market share in France. Germany pulled further ahead, Spain and Italy were still behind, Belgium was about equal to the UK, and The Netherlands actually pulled slightly ahead.
We'll have to see what the breakdown is for the Oct-Dec quarter, but this idea that the performance of the Wii U in the UK is uniquely poor just isn't true from the data we have. There is no logical reason for Nintendo to abandon the UK.
