shipped or not shipped, that's the question...

Shipped + digital

ALL manufactuers report shipped figures as sold because those units ARE sold...just not directly to the consumer (except for digital distribution sales).  Manufacturers sell to retailers, distributors, wholesalers, etc...they are their direct customers and they report sales as sold to them.

It's an industry standard reporting method that is in wide use across thousands of industries.

The only other time they'd report other figures are units manufactured.  Sony used this reporting method until fiscal year 2007.

Keep in mind that I, and others, are referring to investor reports only such as this one.  They can announce sold through to consumers sales at any time they like but won't report them to investors during the quarterly, 9 month (this one) and annual reports.  Often, they'll cite a sales tracking firm for this data.

Thanks for clearing that up! 

vgchartz has Wii U software at 19.94m while Nintendo reports 29.37m. Some of it is the difference between shipped and sold to end users, but I assume most of it comes from digital sales. That's a lot of digital sales!

Yes, VGC seems to be spot on with Nintendo hardware and the bigger software (the totals are still a bit strange, especially for DS). Good job!

Considering the userbase that is a lot of software. However a lot of these digital sales will very likely include VC and mini games with very low pricing. I am more interested in the full price titles.

Anyhow this shows how well Nintendo Wii U owners attach themselves to Nintendo software and why Nintendo must work overtime in producing more software if the wii u is to be turned around. That is of course considering that they are more than just a  few million Nintendo fans left in the wild.

The WiiU was basically sold out in many retailers the last week of december (even briefly rumored to have outsold X1) and had some pretty aggressive eShop sales throughout the month -- not surprised at all by this.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but prior to the 3DS and Wii U, Nintendo never shared numbers for VC games on DS or Wii. Don't see why Nintendo is including them now. Unless during the Wii and DS the VC games were included in the software ship numbers, and now they are on the digital numbers, or they are still in the normal ship software numbers, but at this point they are just confusing investors.

Wii U bundles come with a digital download code. And the rest of that figure is sitting in warehouses and store shelves.