Wii U didn't crack 2 million hardware sales in 2014, but Smash Bros., Amiibo, and Mario Kart show improvement.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/39443/amiibo-sales-soar-wii-u-sales-increase
The Wii U had its best hardware and software sales month ever, according to Nintendo, as hardware sales shot up 29% and software sales improved by 75% from 2013. In addition, around 2.5 million Amiibo have been sold so far, nearly double the total sales of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
Looking at Nintendo's publicly available sales data from the past two years, the Wii U appears to have sold around 1.67 million units in the Americas in 2014, compared to 2013's 1.3 million. From October to December, Nintendo appears to have sold about 760,000 units in the Americas.
Game-wise, Mario Kart 8 sold 1.7 million physical and digital units, and Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire sold more than 2.6 million units. The pair of Smash Bros. games sold close to 4 million units combined, with 1.7 coming from the Wii U version and over 2 million coming from the 3DS version.
While 3DS hardware sales weren't mentioned, 3DS first-party software sales boasted its biggest month ever, mostly thanks to Smash Bros. and Pokémon. The top 15 best-selling handheld games were all released for 3DS in 2014.
Imagine what those amiibo sales would've looked like if Nintendo had kept the supplies flowing to stores over Christmas. Man, was that a major fail.
So the 3DS didn't sell well enough for Nintendo to mention it but game sales were the highest they've ever been. Isn't that a good thing? So maybe 3DS system sales have plateaued but that userbase is a good size and they're buying games. Games are typically where the money is (and if Nintendo had had better third party support over the last several console generations they might remember that big money can be made off of the console maker's cut of third party sales) but Nintendo cares way too much about hardware. A common strategy is to sell the system at a loss or break-even point and make it up in game sales. The system is the barrier of entry but once you've got that in someone's hands they can become a regular customer.Nintendo has been doing that for ever portable system they have ever released. From Game Boy to the Game Boy Pocket/Color, Game Boy Advance to Game Boy Advance SP, DS to DSi, and finally 3DS to the 2DS/New 3DS. We still havent caught on unfortunately.
Nintendo is all panicky about 3DS hardware sales having peaked so they've got the New 3DS and the whole plan is to get everyone to buy a 3DS again but this risks destroying customer trust in your product. In the future people will be less likely to buy your product if they figure you're going to replace it at any moment. Wouldn't it make much more sense to focus on game sales? You have a healthy userbase, games are selling, the games make money and I know Nintendo doesn't lose money on hardware sales so aren't things good?
The 3DS isn't selling like the DS did but the DS was a historical success. You can't expect to recreate something like that. But I wonder how what impact the DSi had on sales. The DSi was a major rip-off and was replaced by the real successor in the 3DS fairly quickly. The 3DS started quite slow and Nintendo has never seem pleased with its sales figures. I think casuals switching to phones for portable gaming is the main cause but I wonder if consumer distrust from the obvious scam that was the DSi had some impact. Was everyone expecting the 3DS to get quickly replaced so they hesitated in buying one? Is there a segment of potential buyers that have just been waiting for the New 3DS (ie: the souped up model they assumed would show up at some point) or alternatively how well will the New 3DS catch on if people remember how unnecessary the DSi was?
