WiiU launched pretty well

[Squilliam]

Stefan.De.Machtige said:

Squilliam said:
I think Europe is actually the most important market to predict future Wii U demand because of all the main regions Europe is the least Nintendo friendly market and therefore it will be a good barometer for demand outside of the Nintendo faithful and the new loyal Wii fanbase. If they cannot increase demand there then I suspect that the U.S.A. will soon follow a similar pattern. The Wii did well in Europe because it expanded the market for the console but if the market for this console contracts in Europe it means they haven't yet gained the interest of their old expanded market.

Odd reasoning. With that logic the x360 would have been doomed for it's lack of Japanese support/sales.

The biggest problem any console has in Europe is the (post-)recession there. Dedicated consoles are low tier luxury products. In that kind of economy, these are the first to suffer. The first to lose sales.

My logic is based off the idea that Nintendo expanded their appeal beyond their core gamers. Since they have more of their core in the U.S.A and Japan than in Europe then the litmus test for how they have kept their wider appeal is Europe. Whilst Europe is feeling poorer than it used to they are still relatively wealthy. The earliest signs of the Wii U doing poorer than the Wii are Europe because they are the only market which isn't following the same pattern as the launch of the Wii and they are the outliers which demand further investigation.

If in the next generation the Xbox Next doesn't exceedingly well in Japan then I would predict that from the outset Microsoft has significantly expanded the appeal of the Nextbox. The same applies to Europe as well, and ditto would apply to the U.S. for Playstation 4. The overall sales of a console depend on appealing to people who would not have otherwise got your consoles by either convincing them that yours is better or to buy a console when they would not have otherwise done so.