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Forums - Nintendo - Wii U game sales 'far behind launch levels for Gamecube and Wii'

JWeinCom on 14 January 2013

Yeah it was sold out (keep in mind the Wii U was pretty much sold out for a few weeks after its release, including Black Friday). Now, here's the question. What method did you use to determine that Microsoft would have sold about 400,000 more units in the US without supply constraints? Please explain how you came to this figure. Seems to me like you're just making a baseless assumption as to what the demand was.

As for the original X-Box sales, I can't really find anything to corroborate that. Only thing I found was on video game sales wikia, but that's a shipped figure and the supposed reports it linked to are dead links. Do you have any source?

Edit:  Also, let's not forget that the original X-Box launched with Halo.  X-Box 360 launched with Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and a pre Modern Warfare Call of Duty.



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ninjablade on 14 January 2013
JWeinCom said:

Yeah it was sold out (keep in mind the Wii U was pretty much sold out for a few weeks after its release, including Black Friday). Now, here's the question. What method did you use to determine that Microsoft would have sold about 400,000 more units in the US without supply constraints? Please explain how you came to this figure. Seems to me like you're just making a baseless assumption as to what the demand was.

As for the original X-Box sales, I can't really find anything to corroborate that. Only thing I found was on video game sales wikia, but that's a shipped figure and the supposed reports it linked to are dead links. Do you have any source?

Edit:  Also, let's not forget that the original X-Box launched with Halo.  X-Box 360 launched with Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and a pre Modern Warfare Call of Duty.

November 2001
Xbox: 711,619
Gamecube: 647,466

December 2001
Xbox: 690,817
Gamecube: 558,200

So the Life-to-date totals, all of them covering very close to the same number of days, are:
Xbox: 1.4 million
Gamecube: 1.2 million
Wii U: 885k

 

these are from neogaf and 100% confirmed. the method that i used was common sense, since 2006-2012 360 has done over a million units in december, obiouvsly if was'nt sold out would sold better then the orginial xbox you simply can not make up the sales missed for november and december.



Devil_Survivor on 14 January 2013

Here's the key point a lot of people are missing: If its bringing in more money than the Wii and Gamcube, what's the issue?



 

Devil_Survivor on 14 January 2013
ninjablade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
ninjablade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
ninjablade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Tarumon said:
[...]

Some good points here. The first paragraph is spot on. I own a Wii U, but I'm really only interested in the exclusive games: New Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, Nintendo Land, Scribblenauts Unlimited, etc. Although Ninja Gaiden and Black Ops 2 intrigue me, because of Wii U content and features.

Still, most consoles get off to slow starts, and Wii U is no exception. I think Nintendo must be happy with its hardware portfolio, even if Wii U sales are lower than Wii in its first months. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Nintendo was moving around 2 million units combined (Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and DS) per month in November and December. That's a really nice figure.

Also, "cheap and greedy" is a low blow :P

that's not true at all, the reason they sometimes start off slow is cause they have a shortage of supply, except for the ps3 because of the price, most consoles that succeed, like the wii, 360, ps2 did great numbers january, feb in the us.

It is true. Most consoles start slowly. There are exceptions to that rule, like Wii, but it is the rule.

wii and ps2 sold great from the get go, it was only a supply issue holding it back, 360 aways put up decent numbers, the only system that started off slow and succeeded is ps3 cause of the 599$, so please.

I really don't want to belabor this point and derail the thread. Consoles, as you know, did not enter the world in 2000.

Most consoles start slowly. You've only cherry picked a few early success stories. There are a few dozen video game consoles, most of which got off to a slow start.

lol sure most consoles start off slowly and usually don't sale more then 30 million  , where are the numbers to prove your theory cause i can't find any, we do know the first playsation was selling well enough for sega to call it quits after a year on the market with the saturn.

What the hell are you talking about? The Saturn lasted more than a year, actually it lanuched in November 1994 and was discontuined in September 1998. Didn't the PS3 get over to a pretty slow start? 



 

ninjablade on 14 January 2013
Devil_Survivor said:
ninjablade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
ninjablade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
ninjablade said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:
Tarumon said:
[...]

Some good points here. The first paragraph is spot on. I own a Wii U, but I'm really only interested in the exclusive games: New Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, Nintendo Land, Scribblenauts Unlimited, etc. Although Ninja Gaiden and Black Ops 2 intrigue me, because of Wii U content and features.

Still, most consoles get off to slow starts, and Wii U is no exception. I think Nintendo must be happy with its hardware portfolio, even if Wii U sales are lower than Wii in its first months. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Nintendo was moving around 2 million units combined (Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and DS) per month in November and December. That's a really nice figure.

Also, "cheap and greedy" is a low blow :P

that's not true at all, the reason they sometimes start off slow is cause they have a shortage of supply, except for the ps3 because of the price, most consoles that succeed, like the wii, 360, ps2 did great numbers january, feb in the us.

It is true. Most consoles start slowly. There are exceptions to that rule, like Wii, but it is the rule.

wii and ps2 sold great from the get go, it was only a supply issue holding it back, 360 aways put up decent numbers, the only system that started off slow and succeeded is ps3 cause of the 599$, so please.

I really don't want to belabor this point and derail the thread. Consoles, as you know, did not enter the world in 2000.

Most consoles start slowly. You've only cherry picked a few early success stories. There are a few dozen video game consoles, most of which got off to a slow start.

lol sure most consoles start off slowly and usually don't sale more then 30 million  , where are the numbers to prove your theory cause i can't find any, we do know the first playsation was selling well enough for sega to call it quits after a year on the market with the saturn.

What the hell are you talking about? The Saturn lasted more than a year, actually it lanuched in November 1994 and was discontuined in September 1998. Didn't the PS3 get over to a pretty slow start? 

yea sorry about that mistake, never really followed the sega saturn.  yea the ps3 started off slow but i already said it was cause of the price, once it hit 299$ it really took off.



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Gamerace on 14 January 2013

While WiiU's price is a factor and digital sales, I think a bigger factor is the games themselves. NSMBU is the only non-pack-in seller. NintendoLand for people who got a base unit, maybe (but if they wanted it, it'd make more sense to get the deluxe (or whatever it's called) version. And for the core ZombiiU. And thats' very mixed reviews and not to everyone's taste. Otherwise it's games we already own (or could own) on other systems without any compelling reason to buy them for WiiU. Casual fare is lacking.

Wii had Zelda and nothing else noteable (aside from packed in Wii Sports) but all of Wii's games were new and unique to Wii. Even ports were interesting because we wanted to try them with motion controls. There were more reasons to buy more games. What's cooking like? What's surgury like? What's racing like? It was interesting.

This is a huge problem for Nintendo since they need games sales to achieve profitability.



 

TakeMeToTheHospital on 14 January 2013
snyps said:

Above me is an excellent point

 

 

I just miss the days when systems launched with a "must buy" game.  I blame the success of Sony systems for this trend of hype, promises, and guauntity. (over quality)


Nintendo Land!! That game is a "must buy"



Mummelmann on 14 January 2013
maverick40 said:
MDMAlliance said:
I think lower software sales have something to do with the fact that Wii U games cost $60.

In my loca gamestop, Black ops 2 for wii u cost €70....ridiculous.


CoD games cost more than other games and they stay at full price for longer. On Steam, they cost 10 euros more than other games and it stays full price for like six months. Some of the "deals" are also pretty rotten. Modern Warfare (the original) still costs 25 euros after over five whole years and Modern Warfare 3 is still full price at 60 goddamn euros after 14 months on the market... Its ridiculous.



maverick40 on 14 January 2013
Mummelmann said:
maverick40 said:
MDMAlliance said:
I think lower software sales have something to do with the fact that Wii U games cost $60.

In my loca gamestop, Black ops 2 for wii u cost €70....ridiculous.


CoD games cost more than other games and they stay at full price for longer. On Steam, they cost 10 euros more than other games and it stays full price for like six months. Some of the "deals" are also pretty rotten. Modern Warfare (the original) still costs 25 euros after over five whole years and Modern Warfare 3 is still full price at 60 goddamn euros after 14 months on the market... Its ridiculous.

Yeah activision are scum when it comes to pricing. 



MDMAlliance on 14 January 2013
ninjablade said:
MDMAlliance said:

I think you're missing the point that the Wii U just launched and previously Nintendo games were $50 rather than $60, which probably put off a lot of people who were used to buying $50 games.  

I very much doubt this, it might put off a few very cheap people but  not a lot of people, samething happend xbox to 360 and ps2 to ps3, yet games sold better then ever.

I don't doubt that it had a strong influence on software sales compared to the Wii and Gamecube.  If we can say console price contributed, why not game price as well?  3 $50 games vs 3 $60 games is a $30 difference in price already.  

Back when the PS3 and 360 launched, the economy was kind of the opposite of what it was today as well.  People are cheaper now than before, because when the economy is bad (and/or perceived as bad), people spend LESS money.  Some things don't go down, but I am pretty sure this is a thing that went down.