U.S. Sales of Nintendo Wii U Drop to Catastrophic Levels in January.
Microsoft Xbox 360 Remains Best-Selling Console in the U.S.
[02/16/2013 11:45 PM]by Anton Shilov
The launch sales of Nintendo Wii U in November and December were nothing but disappointing, however, sales of the console in January, seem to be just catastrophic. As Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 remained the top selling video
game platform for the sixteenth consecutive month, shipments of Nintendo Wii U in January fell below sales of GameCube in its worst month ever.
According to data released by NPD and published by various web-sites citing official data and sources with knowledge of the matter, Microsoft sold 281 thousand Xbox 360 game consoles in January in the U.S., whereas Nintendo supplied only 57 thousand Wii Us in the same period. Official sales figures have not been released for the remaining platforms yet by Nintendo of America and Sony Computer Entertainment America.
In fact, 57 thousand of Wii U consoles sold last month is lower than sales of Nintendo GameCube back in January, 2012. In its first January, GameCube was shipped in 59 thousand quantity in the U.S., according to NPD. That was the worst month for Nintendo GameCube throughout its lifetime in the United States.
Nintendo acknowledged last month that the launch of the Wii U were disappointing and confessed that it had failed to communicate
its value to the end-users worldwide. At the same time, Nintendo said that it would not reduce the price of the console to boost sales but will attempt to ensure that there are more games for the platform on the market.
