Well, I was quite wrong on MK's effect on HW. I was thinking it'd be like what MGS4 did to PS3 on a slightly lower scale. :-/

Sad. Game sold well, but it looks like there isn't much left to boost HW for Wii U in Japan.

Well at least, Wii U will be second in the world this week

Have you opened that champagne bottle yet?

Almost everyone and his donkey have been claiming that home consoles in Japan are dead. Yet, these sales seem to surprise the very same people that have been shouting this all along. Strange.

I too believe that home consoles in Japan are a lost cause. They were the first people to accept consoles en mass and now are the first to reject them.

Therefore I seem to be the only one that knows what is really going on :) and not at all surprised by this.

I predicted about 150k SW and 30k HW. Both were for a whole week of MK8 sales.

The real story for Wii U is in America and to a lesser extent Europe.

These are also sales for only two days of MK8 I think.

Sony stated that they need to urgently revitalise the Japanese market with new and innovative software, they better hurry up.

The low WiiU sales are evidence enough most people who like this game have already bought the console. It's sad, but Japan is fast losing relevance as a big gaming market, not talking about mobile since that's not for us. Sony and Microsoft did good by not concentrating on Japan too much as there's less and less to be had there. Nintendo is impacted by this the most as their presence in the west is shrinking and nothing they have has been succesful in reversing that so far.

Just WHAT is really going on, justinian?...actually, did you notice all this mess started exactly during the transition from the 6th gen to the last gen?...most Japanese developers really couldn´t fully adapt to HD.

If there ever is another traditional Nintendo console (which I'm starting to doubt, they probably go the hybrid route) ... it's time for Nintendo to ditch the idea of making consoles designed for Japanese tastes first and foremost.

They have to make a console for the Western audience 1st and foremost from here on out, like Sony did with the PS4, if they want to even compete any more.

Why doesn't that make sense? All console sell more in their second holiday season, the PS3, 360, DS and Wii beat the initial launch holidays easily, only the 3DS stands out in this crowd and sold about 10% less in its second holiday (but wasn't released during holidays either).

Wii sold about 2.95 million from launch week (Nov 25th 2006) and till last of December, it sold 4.3 million in the same weeks the following year. Supply constrained? Sure, but they stockpile for holidays regardless, so a proportional amount of consoles should be available at both times.

PS3 sold about 1.25 million from launch week (Nov 11th 2006) and till last December, it sold 3.2 million the following holiday (counting the same weeks, naturally). No supply issues here. There was the matter of not launching in Europe until March 2007 but it almost tripled its numbers, hardly solely due to Europe, whose launch hype would have died down in the previous 7-8 months at any rate.

The 360 sold, as the sole 7th generation machine on the market, from launch week (last week of Nov. 2005) till last December, about 1.18 million, it sold about 2.05 million the following holiday with no sales in Japan at all and two competitors stealing thunder, not too far off a double there.

The DS sold from launch week (Nov 27th 2004) till last December about 2.85 million units, it sold about 4.55 million the following holiday.

Like I said; the 3DS is the odd man out, outpeforming your launch holiday the following year is more or less a rule of thumb for consoles, how is this comparison faulty? The fact that 2013 was not the Wii U's launch year should mean its sales should increase, a great deal if history is anything to go by, the launch of the PS4 and One clearly stole most of the attention but the above example shows the lumbering 360 in its early, fumbling years almost doubling its sales despite the launch of the PS3 and the record breaking Wii. I guess some would claim that "well, the Wii didn't compete for the same customers anyway" and I'd be inclined to agree to some extent, but then we would have to make the same claim about the Wii U vs. One/PS4 and things are looking bleak again.

With sales like these, Nintendo should definitely start thinking more about their western audiences.

Japan only? That's another case entirely, then. Japan's traditional gaming market is dying quickly.