Post by andrew8798 on Jan 31, 2013 16:16:51 GMT -5
The Wii U’s failure to meet it initial sales targets will not result in a price cut for the Wii U, with president Satoru Iwata telling investors that, ‘we are already offering it at a good price’.
Yesterday Nintendo announced its new quarterly results, lowering its sales expectations for the Wii U from 5.5 million by the end of March to 4 million. The sales were still better than many had expected though and, importantly for investors, Nintendo returned to profitability after taking a bath on its sales cut for the 3DS last year.
It’s this price cut which some now expect the Wii U to emulate, but there seems several good reasons to assume it won’t. The first is that the 3DS’s recovery from an equally poor launch was not just due to the price cut but the double whammy of Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land.
The Wii U’s software line-up still remains nebulous and at the moment there’s still too few obvious reasons to buy the console, no matter how much it costs. In fact Iwata is probably right in saying that the current price is reasonable, as compared to the lack of games it’s not been the primary complaint from most people.
Once Nintendo does have specific release dates for big name games a cut may become more likely though, especially as a means to divert attention from new consoles from Microsoft and Sony this Christmas.
As in the recent Nintendo Direct, Iwata didn’t try to deflect blame for the Wii U’s poor post-launch line-up, saying: ‘I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business’.
‘The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,’ he added – in reference to ensuring a new console has enough games to stimulate demand.
Yesterday Nintendo revealed that the Wii U has so far sold 1.32 million consoles in the U.S., 0.83 million in Japan, and 0.90 million in the rest of the world. Iwata didn’t break those numbers down any further but he did say that home console sales in the U.S. over Christmas were the worst for nearly a decade.
Sales figures are never generally released in Europe, for any console, but Nintendo did break that trend with an interesting look at 2012’s results. According to them the PlayStation 3 sold 4.34 million consoles in Europe, the Xbox 360 was well behind on 3.01 million, the Wii was on 2.04 million, and the Wii U on 0.43 million.
Although the Xbox 360 is more successful in the UK and U.S. the PlayStation 3 still came out on top worldwide last year, at 8.98 million to the 8.41 million of the Xbox 360.
The figures also mean that the U.S. home console market in 2012 remained slightly larger than Europe, at 1,158,000 consoles sold to 9,826,000.
The portable console market though still remains a one horse race, with the 3DS selling 3.61 million units in Europe during 2012, 5.50 million in Japan, and 3.60 million in the U.S.
Compared to that the PS Vita could only manage 1.16 million in Europe, 0.69 million in Japan, and 1.28 million in the U.S.
Yesterday Nintendo announced its new quarterly results, lowering its sales expectations for the Wii U from 5.5 million by the end of March to 4 million. The sales were still better than many had expected though and, importantly for investors, Nintendo returned to profitability after taking a bath on its sales cut for the 3DS last year.
It’s this price cut which some now expect the Wii U to emulate, but there seems several good reasons to assume it won’t. The first is that the 3DS’s recovery from an equally poor launch was not just due to the price cut but the double whammy of Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land.
The Wii U’s software line-up still remains nebulous and at the moment there’s still too few obvious reasons to buy the console, no matter how much it costs. In fact Iwata is probably right in saying that the current price is reasonable, as compared to the lack of games it’s not been the primary complaint from most people.
Once Nintendo does have specific release dates for big name games a cut may become more likely though, especially as a means to divert attention from new consoles from Microsoft and Sony this Christmas.
As in the recent Nintendo Direct, Iwata didn’t try to deflect blame for the Wii U’s poor post-launch line-up, saying: ‘I feel a deep sense of responsibility for not being able to produce results for our year-end business’.
‘The chicken-and-game problem has not been solved,’ he added – in reference to ensuring a new console has enough games to stimulate demand.
Yesterday Nintendo revealed that the Wii U has so far sold 1.32 million consoles in the U.S., 0.83 million in Japan, and 0.90 million in the rest of the world. Iwata didn’t break those numbers down any further but he did say that home console sales in the U.S. over Christmas were the worst for nearly a decade.
Sales figures are never generally released in Europe, for any console, but Nintendo did break that trend with an interesting look at 2012’s results. According to them the PlayStation 3 sold 4.34 million consoles in Europe, the Xbox 360 was well behind on 3.01 million, the Wii was on 2.04 million, and the Wii U on 0.43 million.
Although the Xbox 360 is more successful in the UK and U.S. the PlayStation 3 still came out on top worldwide last year, at 8.98 million to the 8.41 million of the Xbox 360.
The figures also mean that the U.S. home console market in 2012 remained slightly larger than Europe, at 1,158,000 consoles sold to 9,826,000.
The portable console market though still remains a one horse race, with the 3DS selling 3.61 million units in Europe during 2012, 5.50 million in Japan, and 3.60 million in the U.S.
Compared to that the PS Vita could only manage 1.16 million in Europe, 0.69 million in Japan, and 1.28 million in the U.S.
-GameCentral
