Author Topic: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii  (Read 52125 times)

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Offline NWR_Neal

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Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« on: April 22, 2014, 03:33:00 PM »

Spoiler alert: It is very depressing.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/37210/comparing-wii-us-sales-to-gamecube-wii

A season changes and another month passes, which means we likely had more confirmation that the Wii U is not selling well. With very few, if any, releases, the expectations from month-to-month are dismal. But exactly how bad? According to analyst David Gibson, a little more than 70,000 Wii Us were sold in March 2014. That means the Wii U was thoroughly outclassed by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which both posted sales numbers in the 300,000 range. That’s not a competition; that’s a slaughter.

Here’s the full rundown of what we know for each system (most are approximate numbers, not exact):

  1. PS4 - More than 311,000
  2. Xbox One - 311,000
  3. 3DS - 159,000
  4. Xbox 360 - 111,000
  5. Wii U - 70,000
  6. Wii - 28,000
  7. Vita - 10,000

Yes, the Xbox 360 is still beating the Wii U monthly. It’s not like the Wii U had much to offer this month (I defy you to name a notable release in March), but still: a nearly 9-year-old system is beating Nintendo’s latest console handily.

Let’s have some more fun with numbers. Let’s go back to comparable moments for each of Nintendo’s recent systems. Here are the sales from the Wii U, Wii, and GameCube from their second March on the market:

  • Wii U (March 2014) - 70,000
  • Wii (March 2008) - 721,000
  • GameCube (March 2003) - 165,000

Taking it a step further, here’s where each of those three systems were at sales-wise overall at those same points:

  • Wii U - Between 5 and 6 million units worldwide as of March 2014
  • Wii - About 25 million units worldwide as of March 2008
  • GameCube - About 9.5 million units worldwide as of March 2003 (Update: We originally had 14.5 million units for GameCube but we were mistaken. Thanks to all who pointed out the correction.)

People keep comparing the Wii U to the GameCube, but look at those numbers. They are not comparable. The Wii U is selling about half as much as the GameCube. And the GameCube is still a year away from its swift and quick collapse. The GameCube might have been in third place in its generation, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the complete and total bomb that the Wii U is.

It’s a broken record at this point, but the Wii U continues to underwhelm. With indie games getting delayed, little-to-no third-party support, and a swiss cheese-like first-party calendar, things don’t look like they’re going to get better. An optimistic goal is for the Wii U to maybe cross 10 million sold worldwide, which would put it on par with the Sega Saturn and the TurboGrafx-16. With that depressing news, the best bet might be to enjoy Mario Kart and Smash Bros. and join me in asking the stars “When’s Quality of Life coming out? Can I play Mario on that?”

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Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2014, 05:05:57 PM »
I would say this is depressing but I actually don't find it that way.  This has been a long time coming.  I've been jerked around by Nintendo enough over the years that I don't care.  The "real" Nintendo, the one I became a fan of in the first place, has been gone for years.  I don't see Nintendo at the end of their rope, I see the Nintendo imposter that took their place and I don't give a **** about them.  The real Nintendo got cancer in 1996 and died at some point during the first half of the 00's and was replaced by some pod person Nintendo.

The Dreamcast was depressing because Sega had seemingly gotten their **** together.  They were seemingly doing everything right and had a great product but failed nonetheless.  That's sad.  The Wii U deserves to fail so it doing so is no tragedy.

The one part I do find despressing is that I fear Nintendo will just give up on games.  They COULD learn from this but I fear they won't and that the Quality of Life thing is them leaving the traditional gaming market to focus on health related software like Wii Fit or Brain Age.  This should be the swift kick in the ass they need to get their act together but it probably isn't and that would suck.  I would be upset if there was a chance for the "real" Nintendo to return and they made no effort to act on it.  I would rather they try and fail with a Dreamcast then to just quit.

Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2014, 05:38:03 PM »
Man, this is like comparing apples to Segway scooters. There were way more apples sold this month than Segway scooters. What a surprise! Guess Segway should stop making them and come out with an apple cart instead. Here's a comparison for you. In the month of March, the Wii U sold more units than Xbox360 in Japan. See, making up comparisons to suit your agenda is easy. That's why I always compare myself to everyone and everything. It should come as no surprise that I always come out on top because nothing can compare to me.
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Offline Phil

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2014, 06:21:40 PM »
I would say this is depressing but I actually don't find it that way.  This has been a long time coming.  I've been jerked around by Nintendo enough over the years that I don't care.  The "real" Nintendo, the one I became a fan of in the first place, has been gone for years.  I don't see Nintendo at the end of their rope, I see the Nintendo imposter that took their place and I don't give a **** about them.  The real Nintendo got cancer in 1996 and died at some point during the first half of the 00's and was replaced by some pod person Nintendo.

The Dreamcast was depressing because Sega had seemingly gotten their **** together.  They were seemingly doing everything right and had a great product but failed nonetheless.  That's sad.  The Wii U deserves to fail so it doing so is no tragedy.

The one part I do find despressing is that I fear Nintendo will just give up on games.  They COULD learn from this but I fear they won't and that the Quality of Life thing is them leaving the traditional gaming market to focus on health related software like Wii Fit or Brain Age.  This should be the swift kick in the ass they need to get their act together but it probably isn't and that would suck.  I would be upset if there was a chance for the "real" Nintendo to return and they made no effort to act on it.  I would rather they try and fail with a Dreamcast then to just quit.

I feel retarded for reading this post. You just seem incredibly sore, and the "Real Nintendo" nonsense (whatever the hell THAT means) lowered my IQ by quite a bit.

Nintendo is still creating fantastic games in multiple genres and multiple franchises.

Unless you're just angry that Nintendo stopped catering to you 100% of the time. God forbid it makes games for other types of people and not just whiny bratty gamers who cry if they aren't the center of attention 24/7.

Sorry, but this real Nintendo or this old Nintendo crap is stupid as hell. Don't even get me started and the stupid and tasteless cancer analogy.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2014, 06:25:46 PM »
Don't get too upset about that, it's just Ian being Ian. At the very least, he's consistent, as I've been around these parts upwards of 6 years now and he's pretty much always been that way.
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2014, 06:27:00 PM »
You may consider this comparing apples to oranges, but if you start comparing apples to apples things look even worse.

Wii U is selling much worse than GameCube in a much larger market.  It's also selling much less than Wii in an expanded market that the Wii itself created.

What's worse is that Nintendo is really only half-heartedly supporting it.  It's doing as much as it can, I guess, but that isn't enough and everybody knows it.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #6 on: April 22, 2014, 06:30:29 PM »
Man, this is like comparing apples to Segway scooters. There were way more apples sold this month than Segway scooters. What a surprise! Guess Segway should stop making them and come out with an apple cart instead. Here's a comparison for you. In the month of March, the Wii U sold more units than Xbox360 in Japan. See, making up comparisons to suit your agenda is easy. That's why I always compare myself to everyone and everything. It should come as no surprise that I always come out on top because nothing can compare to me.


So are you really suggesting that Wii U is a healthy console?


As much as I enjoy Wii U and want it to be successful, part of being realistic is accepting that what I want and what actually *is* aren't the same thing.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #7 on: April 22, 2014, 06:33:08 PM »

You may consider this comparing apples to oranges, but if you start comparing apples to apples things look even worse.

Wii U is selling much worse than GameCube in a much larger market.  It's also selling much less than Wii in an expanded market that the Wii itself created.

What's worse is that Nintendo is really only half-heartedly supporting it.  It's doing as much as it can, I guess, but that isn't enough and everybody knows it.

I don't think the market's that expanded from where it was with the GameCube. It certainly was for a while with the Wii, but I think a lot of that audience has moved on, which is a significant part of Nintendo's problem here.
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Offline Neifirst

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #8 on: April 22, 2014, 06:39:44 PM »
The author knows that Wind Waker released in March 2003 on Gamecube, right?  That might have something to do with higher sales that month.  It also cost $149, which is still over $100 cheaper even after adjusting for inflation.

Nobody would argue that Wii U is a success, but if you're going to write a story on sales, provide a bit better-researched background information.

Offline broodwars

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #9 on: April 22, 2014, 06:55:45 PM »
Man, the Wii U wishes it was the GameCube: the GameCube had BETTER better 3rd party support (despite having a far more dominant competitor in the PS2 and being closer in the timeline to that period when Nintendo WAS a tyrannical dictator over 3rd parties), better parity between cross-platform games, and had a software lineup that's generally beloved.

It's pretty clear at this point that the Wii U has no chance at recovering as a viable competitor to its competition: In less than 6 months, the PS4's already eclipsed the Wii U's total lifetime sales without Sony even really releasing its big titles yet (aside from Infamous). The Xbone isn't far behind, despite an even worse software lineup. Mario Kart & Smash Bros. may temporarily boost Wii U sales for a month, maybe two, but as no previous Wii U software has done more than that there is no reason to believe those 2 games will suddenly change that situation.

At this point, the best Nintendo can do is what they did with the GameCube and what Sony did with the PS3: dig in, build-up their infrastructure of 1st party developers, and release a strong lineup of 1st party games with a smattering of 3rd party partnership games that at least leave the Wii U as a fondly remembered system. Unfortunately, so far I see no evidence that Nintendo is making that hard (and expensive) sacrifices required to build for the future. Instead, Nintendo just seems to be spinning its wheels doing the same things over and over again...expecting a different result. I believe that's called "insanity" (or "stupidity", depending on your point of view).

Hopefully we start seeing some big moves from them soon. Despite my rather cynical views on Nintendo these days, I want the Wii U to be a system I have reason to remember fondly. I want Nintendo to surprise me by growing & evolving. They're just not giving me any indication that they've learned anything yet from the complete ass-kicking they've been receiving for the last 3 years.
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Offline broodwars

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #10 on: April 22, 2014, 06:56:44 PM »
*notices the double-posted word in his above post.* I hate our inability to edit Talkback posts. -_-
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Offline Phil

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #11 on: April 22, 2014, 06:57:48 PM »
Don't get too upset about that, it's just Ian being Ian. At the very least, he's consistent, as I've been around these parts upwards of 6 years now and he's pretty much always been that way.

Oh, it's more that that is a common opinion among so many gamers, that somehow Nintendo "abandoned" them, despite having so much content for both those who don't play a lot of games and those who do. I mean, I won't do list wars here, but there's was a lot of so-called core content for so-called core gamers.

It's simply immensely irritating to read this misinformation from folks who want to be the center of each and every publishers' attention 24/7.
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Offline Kytim89

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2014, 07:14:18 PM »
While I am not ready to close the book on the Wii U just, there idea of the Wii U being the grand selling that any of its predecessors managed to be is a pipe dream. Although I am confident that the Wii U will surpass the Dreamcast's total sales, but it might not ever manage to beat twenty million units sold, perhaps it will fizzle out at fifteen million instead. As for placing blame, everyone else on this forum does a good job of pint out Nintendo for their faults and their guilt is certain.

Nintendo is really in the same position Sony was in last generation with PS3. Nintendo is actually the least conservative with the Wii U then they have been in the past. The streaming technology is Nintendo's blur ay and cell processor. It's costing them a lot of money. 
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Offline Stealth

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2014, 07:32:18 PM »
Sorry but these comparisions are apples and oranges. The numbers do not mean anything

Offline lolmonade

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2014, 07:37:07 PM »
So…I'm one of those people who bought an Xbox 360 recently..I'm typically one to buy a system at the end of its life cycle and pick up a handful of exclusives I never got around to playing. 


Not saying Wii U's sales aren't horrible, just saying the 360 is catching more the "I may as well now that it's on its way out" sales (especially since some retailers here have been having good sales on them to get rid of stock, lately) while the Wii U is still the "new" system. 


Maybe that makes it worse...

Offline Phil

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #15 on: April 22, 2014, 07:45:08 PM »
The Xbox 360 is getting more support than the Wii U, I would say, so it's not surprising.
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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #16 on: April 22, 2014, 07:51:32 PM »
Its almost as if the casual audience has all but completely moved on to smartphones and facebook games

Now watch as we get not one, but TWO Mario Party games next year

Offline ZSaberLink

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #17 on: April 22, 2014, 07:58:21 PM »
FYI everyone, the GC had only shipped 9.55 million units by March of 2003. Neal went and put the 2004 numbers... Come on NWR, don't spread ridiculous misinformation yourself...

Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #18 on: April 22, 2014, 07:59:16 PM »
What's interesting is that right now I would say the Wii U has the best lineup of games.  The PS4 has Infamous and the XB1 has Titanfall but aside from that they don't really have any other must plays yet while Nintendo's first party titles ensure that if you bought a Wii U today there would be at least three or four games that would demand a purchase.

The problem is that the other consoles look like they have a future and the Wii U doesn't.  A console is very much an investment.  It's an expensive purchase so it's common to get only one and hope you picked the one that will get the games you want in the future.  With the Wii U it's all but certain that the third party support won't be there so unless you like Nintendo games enough to be willing to part with everything else, you're not going to go with it.  And Nintendo so far has been very slow with their releases so the assumption is that there will only be a handful of worthwhile games a year and there will be large gaps between their release dates.  That's a lot of compromise to ask a customer to put up with.

On a personal level, the second it was clear this was another Wii, I didn't want it.  I found the Wii to be incredibly disappointing and I'm not going to support Nintendo going in that direction.  So that just makes it that much harder for Nintendo to sell me a Wii U.  It won't take just a good game.  It needs to be a statement of sorts that things will be different this time and so far they have not shown that.  I don't think with the product they have they even CAN show that.

You can call the core gamer view of the Wii and Wii U "misinformation" but what it is is opinion.  And if that opinion is misguided or misinformed then Nintendo needs to improve their marketing to get a more accurate impression out there.  But I don't think it is inaccurate.  The third party support is terrible and Nintendo is slow to release their own titles.  These are valid complaints.

I don't want Nintendo to focus on non-traditional controls because I feel it compromises the responsiveness of their control schemes.  I don't want last gen hardware because it makes third party multiplatform support impossible.  Imprecise controls and poor third party support are completely valid complaints and Nintendo didn't address them with the Wii successor.  They can fix the controls but if they don't use the Gamepad then it's an unnecessary cost increase to the consumer.  And they cannot fix any of the issues that come with outdated hardware at all.  That's impossible to fix without going with a brand new console entirely so if this matters to a potential customer, that's a permanent non-purchase.

And one big part of it all is that I'm sick of Nintendo consoles having poor third party support.  They've been asking their customers to "please understand" this nonsense for 18 years.  It was one thing to deal with when it seemed like a temporary problem but as the norm, it sucks and it's unrealistic to expect people to be cool with that.  I think with each console more and more Nintendo fans hit their breaking point regarding this issue and Nintendo seemingly makes zero effort to address it.

Offline NWR_Neal

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #19 on: April 22, 2014, 08:04:29 PM »
Hey all - sorry for having the wrong year's numbers done for GameCube. It isn't 14.5, but rather 9.5 million units. Not quite as huge of a disparity compared to the Wii U, but still not kind of awful. Entirely a mental error and our fault.


I appreciate all the comments and I'm sorry if you think these comparisons don't hold water in your eyes.


My motivation for writing this is that a lot of folks tell me "this is a GameCube generation" when that isn't the case. The Wii U is doing terrible. It's doing worse than the GameCube. Market's might be slightly different. Games might be coming out at a different clip, but regardless of when Wind Waker came out or when Mario Kart comes out, the Wii U is doing worse than the GameCube.


As I said in the article, at this rate, the Wii U might be selling something more comparable to what the Saturn or the TurboGrafx-16 sold when all is said and done. There is no way to spin that positively.


If this is comparing apples to oranges to you, then whichever fruit is the Wii U is the foulest smelling and worst tasting fruit ever.
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Offline smallsharkbigbite

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2014, 08:07:44 PM »
I don't think the market's that expanded from where it was with the GameCube. It certainly was for a while with the Wii, but I think a lot of that audience has moved on, which is a significant part of Nintendo's problem here.

Depends on how narrowly you define the market.  Clearly more people play games today than did 5 years ago.  Unfortunately for Nintendo, Apple makes the casual gaming/multi-media device now. 

Quote
On a personal level, the second it was clear this was another Wii, I didn't want it.

It's not remotely another Wii.  The pro controller is phenomenal, the gamepad is a great traditional controller with a screen, and Wii U isn't powerful but it's much closer to the PS4 than the Wii was to the PS3.  The biggest problem with the Wii U is a lack of games.  Nintendo has struggled to provide their normal breath of games because they weren't prepared for HD and terrible 3rd party relations have changed to non-existant. 

Quote
Man, this is like comparing apples to Segway scooters.

What would be a better comparison then?  The two numbers that mean something are expected sales (9.0M vs. 2. :cool; and profit (negative).  There is no argument that the Wii U is selling well or selling as much as Nintendo needs it to. 

Offline Stealth

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2014, 08:21:20 PM »
Neal Apologized for using the wrong numbers. Big of him

Offline Phil

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2014, 08:29:54 PM »
I must also say that there is sick, almost perverse obsession with the Wii U's massive failure.

So many articles, so many discussions as to why it's not selling, so many "look at how shitty these sales are! rofl" pieces that it gets to the point where it just becomes noise.

It's repeated ad nauseum, again and again, and it's just boring now.

It should be the clear that the Wii U is a flop. It should be clear that is a historic failure, and that Nintendo dropped the ball so hard that it went all the way through the Earth's core and out the other side. It's embarrassing how pathetic Nintendo's failure and mismanagement are. It's a humongous fall from grace between the Wii and the Wii U, and it shows to me at least that Iwata and his crew were picking at their butts and throwing feces at one another instead of coming up with an intelligent strategy for the system. The Wii U feels like it HAS no strategy. It's just throw stuff against a wall and see that it sticks.

So after the 455th article about the Wii U selling like water to a drowning Nintendo executive, it gets really tiring and tedious to continue to read about the Wii U's sales, only this time the discussion is worded slightly differently to fool people into thinking something has changed.

Nope. "The Wii U has sold like ****, and it continues to sell like ****."
That would be my headline, and the body of it would read, "The end."
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2014, 08:35:21 PM »
I don't think the market's that expanded from where it was with the GameCube. It certainly was for a while with the Wii, but I think a lot of that audience has moved on, which is a significant part of Nintendo's problem here.

Depends on how narrowly you define the market.  Clearly more people play games today than did 5 years ago.  Unfortunately for Nintendo, Apple makes the casual gaming/multi-media device now. 

By "market" I was referring to the market for dedicated game consoles. If anything, it may have gotten smaller. A lot of people bought Wiis (and PS2s before that) who'd probably stick to phones/tablets/Facebook now.
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Re: Comparing Wii U's Sales to GameCube, Wii
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2014, 08:59:32 PM »
I must also say that there is sick, almost perverse obsession with the Wii U's massive failure.

So many articles, so many discussions as to why it's not selling, so many "look at how shitty these sales are! rofl" pieces that it gets to the point where it just becomes noise.

It's repeated ad nauseum, again and again, and it's just boring now.

but it makes me feel so good