UK Retailer Confirms It’s Ditching Support for Wii U and Wii U Games… Sort of

[Mummelmann]

Pavolink said:

Mummelmann said:

SpokenTruth said:

Please explain how this affects the rest of Europe, The US and Japan to the point that it necessitates a new global console launch on a schedule other than what Nintendo wants.

Do you go to ASDA (who hasn't carried Wii U mcuh since launch anyway) to buy your games?

How about the fact that this is far from the first report of this kind? How about what I mentioned, that retailers were shipping back units from the launch quarter a year after launch?

It has been reported all over the world that the Wii U has been losing shelf space in several chains and stores for a long time and this incident with ASDA is simply a continuation of this trend, have you missed what's been going on in the past 2-3 years on the market?

This is not a unique instance of this happening; it has become a pattern and that pattern is most assuredly causing Europe, US and Japan and the rest of the world to see less sales and coverage. I repeat; this is not the first store or even chain where this has happened. Don't try to make it sound like an isolated incident when that is clearly not the case.

Examples:

http://wiiudaily.com/2013/09/uk-tesco-nintendo/

http://www.trustedreviews.com/news/asda-drops-nintendo-wii-u-as-price-cuts-fail-to-shift-console

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/09/14/why-have-hmv-removed-wii-u-from-shelves-but-not-sale/

http://www.gonintendo.com/stories/211040-uk-retailers-on-wii-u-s-lack-of-sales-lowering-price-shelf-spac

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/nintendo-moves-to-calm-wii-u-fears-as-unofficial-price-cuts-fail/0112855

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/09/report-best-buy-also-returning-wii-u-basic/

http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/05/rumor-gamestop-discontinuing-wii-u-basic-after-june-18/  (lol; "rebalance stock")

http://wiiudaily.com/2013/03/why-retailers-are-slashing-wii-u-prices/ (hardly a source that would spin or present negative Nintendo news for shits and giggles)

http://oxcgn.com/2013/09/26/australian-retailer-clears-out-nintendo-stock-including-wii-u/

http://www.gengame.net/2013/07/report-walmart-stores-in-canada-to-drop-wii-u-basic-set-price-to-199/

 

There are both official and unofficial reports of many retailers and chains across Europe, NA, Australia and even Japan cutting back on stock, fazing out the Basic model before it was officially cut, shrinking shelf space and hardly stocking Wii U games. If you have missed this development, you can't have been reading gaming related news much at all since early-mid 2013 and up until today.

All these incidents clearly doen't represent only the 5% of the WW sales. Sum all those and Wii U is not a viable product.

Here in Scandinavia, it's a total disaster to try to look for anything Wii U related in gaming stores, there just isn't any shelf space. In my closest Media Markt, the original Wii and DS has more shelf space.

This whole "well, this isn't the Wii U's best market anyway" argument just underlines my point; it has been selling really poorly in very many regions and this has caused retailers to drop support or severely cut back on stock, which in turn leads to even lower sales and a lessened global presence. North American retailers were trying to get rid of the Basic unit long before it was cut from production and distribution, same across all of Europe and in Australia.

If the biggest retailers in the biggest markets are scaling back on stock; that is hardly a healthy sign, and saying that "it is selling better elsewhere" is just simple smoke & mirrors to obscure the big picture; it is losing retailer support and has been doing so for a long time and this report is far from being an isolated incident despite some making it sound that way.