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Forums - Nintendo - The Wii U didn't meet our expectations. Is it a flop?

 

Is the Wii U a flop?

Yes 64 19.45%
 
No, it's a MAJOR flop. 50 15.20%
 
other 214 65.05%
 
Total:328
Barozi on 04 January 2013
Barozi said:
[...]
Wii U - 2.5 million

There you have it.


http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4367261



Excellent !



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Aielyn on 04 January 2013

For some perspective, because a lot of people seem to need it, here's NPD data from November and December 2006:

Wii sales

November: 476,000
December: 604,200
Total 2006: 1,080,200

PS2 sales

November: 664,000
December: 1,500,000
Total Nov/Dec 2006: 2,164,000

It's easy to forget that the previous gen is expected to sell far better than the current gen during a system's first holiday period. Even the juggernaut, the Wii, managed to only sell a little over 1 million units in the US in 2006. Now for comparison (using VGChartz numbers):

Wii U sales

November (to 1st of Dec): 552,583
December (to 29th of Dec): 533,975
Total 2012 (to 29th of Dec): 1,086,558

Note that NPD doesn't follow literal months, and it takes December to be longer than November, so the Nov/Dec split is likely to actually look remarkably similar to that of the Wii in 2006. Note that the primary purpose of this post is to note the PS2 numbers, by the way - people keep comparing Wii U sales with PS3/360 sales, but they ignore the fact that the exact same thing happened last gen, too, with the Wii.

Now, turning to Europe, let's look at how the system is performing (and yes, it's not doing *great*, I recognise that):

Xbox 360 sales

December 2005: 443,074

Wii sales

December 2006: 697,443

Wii U sales

December 2012 (to 29th of Dec): 469,064

In Europe, the Wii U isn't selling as well as the Wii did. But it's not dramatically worse, and the Wii U is still outselling the Xbox 360 during its launch. Comparisons with PS3 are more problematic, as it launched in March. To make the point, consider that it sold 622k in March, but then just 198k in April. How do we interpret this? Suffice it to say, PS3 had the strongest launch, but it isn't obvious how it really compares due to the very different launch timing (360, Wii, and Wii U all launched in December).

Japan is also worth a quick look...

Wii sales

December 2006: 958,199

Xbox 360 sales (for comic relief :P)

December 2005: 85,023

PS3 sales

November 2006: 165,996
December 2006: 306,609
Total 2006: 472,605

Wii U sales

December 2012 (to 30th of Dec): 644,474

The Wii U isn't performing as well as the Wii did in Japan, but it's easily outpacing PS3 and 360.

In short, if you consider the Wii U to be a flop, you'd pretty much have to call the PS3 and 360 major flops. This isn't speculation, it's actual facts based on numbers. And when you consider that the Wii broke all sorts of sales records at launch, you realise that the Wii U is probably selling better than most previous systems other than the Wii.



the_dengle on 04 January 2013

Jay, you yourself predicted 4.9 million sales for Wii U in that thread. That's what I call a conflict of interest.



Jay520 on 04 January 2013
the_dengle said:
Jay, you yourself predicted 4.9 million sales for Wii U in that thread. That's what I call a conflict of interest.


What does that have to do with anything?

Many people say a flop is a product that does worse than expectations.
The Wii U did worse than expectations.

Thus, I want to know if those same people consider the Wii U a flop.

Do you think I deliberately predicted high just so I could make this thread a year later? 



the_dengle on 04 January 2013
Jay520 said:
the_dengle said:
Jay, you yourself predicted 4.9 million sales for Wii U in that thread. That's what I call a conflict of interest.


What does that have to do with anything?

Many people say a flop is a product that does worse than expectations.
The Wii U did worse than expectations.

Thus, I want to know if those same people consider the Wii U a flop.

Do you think I deliberately predicted high just so I could make this thread a year later? 

Hey, you said it, not me. XP

Anyway, haven't we had this whole "flop" discussion enough times now?



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NintendoPie on 04 January 2013
Jay520 said:
the_dengle said:
Jay, you yourself predicted 4.9 million sales for Wii U in that thread. That's what I call a conflict of interest.


What does that have to do with anything?

Many people say a flop is a product that does worse than expectations.
The Wii U did worse than expectations.

Thus, I want to know if those same people consider the Wii U a flop.

Do you think I deliberately predicted high just so I could make this thread a year later? 

Do you think the Wii U is a flop since it didn't meet your predictions/expectations? 



Jay520 on 04 January 2013
NintendoPie said:

Do you think the Wii U is a flop since it didn't meet your predictions/expectations? 

No



Jay520 on 04 January 2013
the_dengle said:

Hey, you said it, not me. XP

Anyway, haven't we had this whole "flop" discussion enough times now?

No



the_dengle on 04 January 2013
Jay520 said:
the_dengle said:

Hey, you said it, not me. XP

Anyway, haven't we had this whole "flop" discussion enough times now?

No

I think we have. We had a whole thread discussing the definition of "flop." If you think people are still being dumb, take it out on the dumb people. You're only encouraging the silliness by going after the Wii U.



richardhutnik on 04 January 2013
Jay520 said:

Many people on the Chartz believe that a flop is a product that fails to meet expectations of forum members. I personally find this line of thinking to be absurd, but people insist that expectations are the best way to determine if a product is a flop. Here is an accurate definition of a flop based on expectations.

- flop: [noun] - a product that performs considerably below the general expectations of the community.

Let's apply this reasoning to determine if the Wii U is a flop or not. 

Observe

Expected Wii U Sales 3.44m
Actual Wii U Sales 2.45m
Percent Difference -29%
# of expectations met 16 (32%)
# of expectations not met 34 (68%)

Expected Wii U sales = average predictions based on this thread
Actual Wii U sales are according to VGChartz

Again, I don't agree with the reasoning that expectations determine a product's success, but many do. For those who do, is the Wii U a flop? It only met 32% of total predictions. I'm not too sure with the logic behind this reasoning, so for those who follow this reasoning, maybe you could help me out.

Is the Wii U a flop? If so, is it a MAJOR flop? If you answered yes to both, then the next question is obviously: Do we need to talk about it?

Discuss

EDIT: Oh, and for those who have previously used expectations to determine if a game is a flop, don't come in here and change your reasoning to suit your agenda (you know who you are). If you do, then you WILL BE EXPOSED.

So, is it myself or Rol that you are doing this to take a shot at?  The way the flop game works IS if people do have excessive expectations, and they don't meet it, it gets spun as a flop.  That is a BIG problem with getting caught up in too much hype.   This goes for Playstation All-Stars, Halo, GTA V, the Wii U, or anything else.  It is important that people top doing this.  The Wii U did gangbusters early.  Whether it has overabundance of stock now is another issue.  I haven't really looked into it that much, but did a local indie videogame store did get one traded in.  And I just called a local Gamestop and they do have them in.

My post was people expecting millions in sales out of Playstation All-Stars.  I never meant to say MOST, just some people expected it, and I was wondering why.

Well, maybe it would be worth talking about the future of console sales, because we may be going into a world of hurt.