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DanneSandin said:

Damn, that's quite high! But as pointed out by another user here, Wii U also have digital sales, albeit probably not as high a percentage as on the Vita. Couple that with all the accessories for Wii U (controllers and Amiibos) I think it's safe to asume Wii U is making more money for Nintendo than Vita for Sony. Let's not forget that most games on Vita are 3rd party games, which means less money for Sony than from a 1st party game. On the other hand, most Wii U games are 1st party games made by Nintendo, which means more money than from a 3rd party game.

And as far as I know, Nintendo are now making a profit from the Wii U HW, but I can't be sure of course. But let's not forget that Sony lost money on the Vita as well.

So all in all, by the end, I think Wii U will have been a more profitable venture for Nintendo than Vita will have been for Sony. Both are massive failures though. I canät imagine either company being happy with the consoles.


I think the big difference between Wii U and Vita with digital sales, besides the cross buy aspect etc. is that Wii U's big titles are all physical releases, whilst a lot of the Vita's software is digital exclusive.

Sony didn't lose money on Vita sales at launch though. I'm pretty sure the figures showed that they were selling units around break even (definitely break even once a memory card was bought) and they didn't do any price cuts in the first year despite the lacklustre sales so it was clear they had decided to make profit margins key through the Vita. Also the R&D was part of the PS4 development which means this will also have been lower than the Wii U's.

I appreciate that first party software brings in more money, however you also have development costs for it whilst all the 3rd party software coming out on Vita is pure royalties and physical has much higher retailer and wholesale cuts + distribution to chuck into the mix whilst digital again, they just get 30% of every sale without putting a penny in themselves.

Obviously we'll probably never actually know so this is all speculation, but I do think the Vita will end it's life having generated more profit than the Wii U :)



RIP Dad 25/11/51 - 13/12/13. You will be missed but never forgotten.