Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii

by Neal Ronaghan - April 22, 2014, 12:33 pm PDT 
Total comments: 2 

Spoiler alert: It is very depressing.

A season changes and another month passes, which means we likely had more confirmation that the Wii U is not selling well. With very few, if any, releases, the expectations from month-to-month are dismal. But exactly how bad? According to analyst David Gibson, a little more than 70,000 Wii Us were sold in March 2014. That means the Wii U was thoroughly outclassed by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which both posted sales numbers in the 300,000 range. That’s not a competition; that’s a slaughter.

Here’s the full rundown of what we know for each system (most are approximate numbers, not exact):

1.            PS4 - More than 311,000

2.            Xbox One - 311,000

3.            3DS - 159,000

4.            Xbox 360 - 111,000

5.            Wii U - 70,000

6.            Wii - 28,000

7.            Vita - 10,000

Yes, the Xbox 360 is still beating the Wii U monthly. It’s not like the Wii U had much to offer this month (I defy you to name a notable release in March), but still: a nearly 9-year-old system is beating Nintendo’s latest console handily.

Let’s have some more fun with numbers. Let’s go back to comparable moments for each of Nintendo’s recent systems. Here are the sales from the Wii U, Wii, and GameCube from their second March on the market:

•  Wii U (March 2014) - 70,000

•  Wii (March 2008) - 721,000

•  GameCube (March 2003) - 165,000

Taking it a step further, here’s where each of those three systems were at sales-wise overall at those same points:

•  Wii U - Between 5 and 6 million units worldwide as of March 2014

•  Wii - About 25 million units worldwide as of March 2008

•  GameCube - About 14.5 million units worldwide as of March 2003

People keep comparing the Wii U to the GameCube, but look at those numbers. They are not comparable. The Wii U is selling nearly a third as much as the GameCube. And the GameCube is still a year away from its swift and quick collapse. The GameCube might have been in third place in its generation, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the complete and total bomb that the Wii U is.

It’s a broken record at this point, but the Wii U continues to underwhelm. With indie games getting delayed, little-to-no third-party support, and a swiss cheese-like first-party calendar, things don’t look like they’re going to get better. An optimistic goal is for the Wii U to maybe cross 10 million sold worldwide, which would put it on par with the Sega Saturn and the TurboGrafx-16. With that depressing news, the best bet might be to enjoy Mario Kart and Smash Bros. and join me in asking the stars “When’s Quality of Life coming out? Can I play Mario on that?”

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/37210/comparing-wii-us-sales-to-gamecube-wii

Wasn't the Gamecube something like $149 at this point of it's lifecycle, half of what the Wii U costs?

Exactly. The Wii U started off at $350, making it Nintendo's most expensive consoles.

Alright, now go make a positive Wii U thread for once.

i know the gamecube was cheap in 2003 im pretty sure they had a deal where they were 99$ cause thats when i got mine.

when wind waker was released.

It's because the Wii U has no target audience. The GameCube had a target audience; Nintendo fans. Now you're going to say "But the Wii U should appeal to Nintendo fans!" but games are just coming out too slow for the Wii U compared to the GC, which already had a Smash Bros., Mario, Zelda, etc. etc. game released by this time.

But I think the biggest issue is that kids today didn't grow up with Mario or Zelda. They are growing up with Call of Duty, Minecraft, Uncharted, etc. etc. In the GameCube era people who grew up with Mario and Zelda still played consoles, but today not so much. I remember the hype for Smash Bros. Brawl being off the charts, but the hype for Smash Bros. Wii U is so tiny Nintendo is focusing on the 3DS version.

I predicted the Wii U would sell about 40 million but now I have halved that prediction.

Einsam_Delphin said: Alright, now go make a positive Wii U thread for once.

I'm sure everyone would love to if there was positive news lol

Yes but what does $149 = now after you adjust for inflation?

And if you take that number and adjust it for a post severe economically recessed world?

And if you take that number and adjust it based on what the cost of developing games is now (much higher, yet still selling the same amount = less profit, so they have to make it up somewhere else like hardware).

There are a NUMBER of LOGICAL reasons why the Wii U isn't selling for $149 right now. If it was, I believe it would absolutely be selling a whole lot more, but Nintendo would be losing more money than they are now with selling a whole lot less right now.

Mystro-Sama said: Einsam_Delphin said: Alright, now go make a positive Wii U thread for once. I'm sure everyone would love to if there was positive news lol

You don't need positive news to make a positive Wii U thread, just like you don't need negative news to make a negative Wii U thread, as this very thread has just proven.

Something I could have never imagined, and who could, really?....before the system launched, of the many pessimistic predictions I read, not even the most pessimistic one toyed with the idea of the system performing even worse than Nintendo´s worst selling console ever (Virtual Boy aside).

Now, there´s a real chance it´ll end up below the GC in the end, making it a failure for the history books.