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jetforcejiminy on 03 December 2014
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zorg1000 said:
jetforcejiminy said:
zorg1000 said:
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Media_Create_sales_figures

According to this Gamecube was right around 3 million at the end of 2003 (it's second full year) while Wii U will likely be around 2.2-2.3 million by the end of this year.

One other thing to take note of is that GC launched in Sept while Wii U launched in Dec so GC has a couple extra months on it by the end of their 2nd full year.


but look at its third and fourth year. gamecube crashed. partly because after an initial onslaught of games (mario sunshine, wind waker, metroid prime, in addition to probably nintendo's biggest first party launch, with wave race, luigi's mansion etc. and melee within two weeks of launch) the games dried up. the situation has been the reverse for the wii u, and its 2015 looks a heck of a lot better than gamecube's 2004. (best part is when gamecube sold least was when it was cheapest--$99.99.)

Well I'm not sure Wii U will sell better next year than GC did in 2004 for Japan. Last year Wii U sold about 900k in Japan and it's currently down YOY by about 100k so we can estimate year end sales to be about 750-800k, depending on the boost that Smash Bros can cause in the final 4 weeks. That would mean Wii U will be down YOY despite having big releases like Donkey Kong, Mario Kart & Smash Bros which are some of Nintendo's biggest hitters.

Next year's lineup does look good but in terms of games that can move alot of units, I'm not so sure. Games like Kirby & Yoshi are 2nd/3rd tier franchises and likely will sell to existing users, Mario Maker has potential but with NSMBU/Luigi U/3D World already out it seems like the Mario fanbase is already on Wii U, Splatoon is another game with potential but is an unproven new ip, Zelda hasn't been very big in Japan for quite some time now, Star Fox is a wildcard we don't know anything about it really so I'll hold judgement on that, I have a hard time seeing Devil's Third selling well. Pretty much the only game that seems like it could be a really big system seller is Xenoblade X.

So I kinda expect Wii U to be down YOY again in 2015. 900k in 2013, 750-800k in 2014, 600k in 2015. Perhaps in can match GC 2004 sales but I can't see it doing much more.

Edit: actually the GC lineup wasn't horrible in 2004.

March-Metal Gear Solid:The Twin Snakes

April-Pikmin 2

July-Paper Mario:The Thousand Year Door

October-Mario Power Tennis

November-Mario Party 6/Naruto:Clash of Ninja 3

December-Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

It's not bad and is comparable to the known titles for next year.

twin snakes sold like shit (less than 500k). pikmin 2 was a huge decline from pikmin (+400k less, or more than 35% of pikmin's sales). jungle beat, while a terrific game, was viewed initially as a novelty and sold accordingly, selling only 25% of what the last major dk game did (dk 64). this is in no way comparable to a new zelda game (which routinely sell 4m+, even on the gc), or a new star fox (which sold almost 2m even when it sucked in star fox adventures, with star fox 64 selling 4m+). paper mario (2.25m) and metroid prime 2 (1.33m), which you missed, were the must-own titles that year. neither sold well compared to the previous installments.

2004 was a bad year for the gc globally, let's not pretend otherwise. the wii u's 2004 was actually 2013, when there were no games rather than the embarrassment of riches the gamecube had at launch. smash, sunshine, metriod prime, wind waker in the same 12-16 month period! and then mario kart at the end of 2003!