Is Nintendo and the Wii U finally bouncing back?

"The Wii U has been out for almost two years now, and sales of the console have been quite disappointing. Because of the low sales, we haven’t seen much support from third party publishers. And while Nintendo’s own first games have been quite successful on the Wii U, there has yet to be a big third party hit on the console.

But it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Last week, Nintendo announced in their quarterly earnings that they company finally made a profit for the first time in many quarters. And they also revealed that the Wii U had sold 7.3 million consoles to date. (By comparison, The PlayStation 4 has been out for just one year, and it has sold over 13 million units.)"

[TheLyonKing]

I know Nintendo fans won't like hearing it but wii u is going to be selling as much as gamecube or n64.

They have gone back to Nintendo will sell to the Nintendo hardcore. They are bouncing back but no where near wii levels or 360, ps3 and probabky ps4. Not all doom and gloom though let me be the first to say when zelda u drops the world will stop spinning, it will not only sell a lot of copies but move a lot of consoles.

I have bought all nintend handheld and she's to gamecube and when zelda is launched I will probably pick up a u, I'm not biased or picking on Nintendo with my comment I am just being a realist.

[thorstein]

Wii U will definitely end in 2nd place this console race. 7.3 million sold through is a decent number.

@eyeco. That is sold through to end users, not shipped to retail like the current 3rd place system.

And, sales do matter for people who like to play online. The more people that own the console, the easier it will be to find others to play against.

[Eyeco]

7.3 million in 2 years is a good a number ? At this rate i don't see it surpassing the Gamecube, the console will acquire a niche little following, but saying it'll end up in 2nd place is beyond optimistic.

[iSuperSaiyanGod]

@eyeco no matter what is sells , outside the numbers it is a great system . Having all 3 next gen system , the wii u is every bit as good as the ps4 . Such a sleeper & has great games . It might not get 3rd party support, but it's line up of games are way better then microsofts . Right now I play the wii u & ps4 about them same .

[Macdaddy71]

2nd place with 7.2 sold in two yrs, ps4 n X11 sold that in a year??? Not counting 360 still selling hot n ps3!!! That's really makes me LMFAO!! Lol... 2nd??? Dang don't know what more to say bout it...lol

[KaladinStormblessed]

@macdaddy, The XB1 is sitting around 6 million right now, so no, it hasn't surpassed the 7.3 million in a year. And the WiiU hasn had its biggest game of the year out yet, as soon as Smash drops WiiU's will be flying off the shelves come Christmas.

[GenericNameHere]

Mind giving a link confirming "sold through to consumers"? NeoGAF still says shipped.

@Kaladinstormblessed
Refers to Smash U as Wii U's biggest system seller, forgets Mario Kart is still a bigger franchise and sells way more, and Mario Kart 8 did release back in May this year and the Wii U still got outsold by the Xbone. The XB1 is less than 2M units away from the Wii U. Did you know Call of Duty Advanced Warfare is coming out today? Did you also know there cheapest official Xbone price for this holiday season is $350? The Xbone has in its soon first year shipped more than half the Wii U shipped in its near two years lifetime.

[thorstein]

@Generic:

http://www.gamespot.com/art...

And:

http://www.cinemablend.com/...

A bit dated, but towards the end of the article it explains "sold through."

That is how Sony reports their sales. Wii U does as well. I however, am not definite on the sales numbers, if that is what you're asking.

[GenericNameHere]

The current Wii U shipments as of September 2014 is 7.29M units.

"Sold through to retailers" and "Sold through to consumers" are very different things, and the Wii U is the former. The Wii U has NOT sold through 7.29M units, just shipped. The PS4 has sold through to consumers 10M units as of early August 2014.

[Dunban67]

7.3 million from Nintendos 2 nd Q results is shipped

The Wii u won t end up in 2nd - it won t be more than a few months - possibly even this year before. XB1 passes it in hardware sales and soon enough software sales

Re the article - Virtually all of their profit was interest income and favorable exchange rates- I m not knocking that- just pointing out it was not from their operating games business (ie Wii U and 3Ds, etc)

I own own Wii, Wii U and 3Ds- only other system was an Atari back in the early 80 s- I want Nintendo to do well but the Wii u is not going to sell a lot - it will be lucky to hit Gamexube numbers

[seraphym88]

if going by a 5 year life cycle for all (which probably wont be the case, but to make it fair), my estimates would be:

PS4: 90mil
Xb1: 60mil
Wii U: 50Mil

I think nintendo will bring a new console 4.5 yrs after WiiU, micro will go 5yrs and sony 5 as well. I dont think this would be catastrophic for any console maker. My numbers for Wii U may seem high to some, but ass WiiU gets more great games people will not only buy for the last great release, but for accumulated library.

I also feel like nintendo will make some more 3rd party suprise collaborations, and that Xeno and Zelda will both be amazing. These numbers would make this gen much lower than last, which i feel will be the truth, but no doom and gloom. There will be consoles for a long time i think.

[Dunban67]

For all the people disagreeing with The Fact that Nintendo s financial reporting numbers of 7.29 million are shipped not sold- this is public info reported by Nintendo- the different console makers do not pick and choose how they calculate their sales numbers for reporting purposes. They all 3 report them the same way which is shipped because they are "selling" to the retailers
All 3 report shipped numbers ( what we call shipped) bit to them they are sales into the distribution channel- this is a fact not an opinion - if anyone tells you otherwise they are wrong

[RosweeSon]

I don't mind hearing that at all it's never done them any harm to only sell 20-30 million consoles a generation in the past its hardly anything new, NES And SNES were pretty successful then sony came Along and ever since it was 30 million ish a console (both n64 and gamecube) did they dissapear no as they have a fantastic handheld always backing them and as I much as I love their home consoles Nintendo are handheld masters never been beaten, even when better more powerful handhelds come along.
At the end of the day with Nintendos attach rate 30 million home consoles sold is no bad feat as they will likely sell 10-15 million games that's 33-50% attach rate, no other company has a phenomenal record when it comes to attach rates like nintendo and at the end of the day it's nothing new for nintendo to be slugging It out for 2nd/3rd they are not going anywhere and I for one couldn't be more happier, they have had one major and massively successful home console and as much as its May have been my personal worst console of theirs the original Wii did sell 100 million consoles in the end, cheap hardware but the price barely ever dropped and there's no way nintendo wasn't making some money off them towards the end and not to mention all the Wii remotes on top. Nintendo have been a business for 125! Years they are not going anywhere as much as the haters may say otherwise and no im no a nintendo fanboy but I do own my Wii U/3DS Alongside PS3/4 and vita, got and 360 but it's back in the box for the foreseeable it's been 9 years after all, I'm a gamer, I play games, good ones ;)
I agree zelda should shift a few consoles but Prob not as many as smash bros but yeah not many company's sell over 100 million consoles worldwide infact only 2 ever have Nintendo once with Original Wii, microsoft are close but not likely to clear it as they are around the 85/90 mark currently with 360 but sony were the first company to clear 100 million consoles with the ps1, then again with ps2, PS3 is around the same mark as 360 but I can see it going on to clear 100 million also and the way the ps4 is going 4/5 years and I think they may possibly have their 4th console in a row to sell 100 million (if PS3 manages it first of course) but then that's sony, they did great to come out of Nowhere and smash everyone apart, 360 came in and caused PS3 major competition specially in America and here in my house and the rest of the U.K but then PS3 had a very rough start and it's only barely recovered in the last year or 3 but it's nearing 10 years old now and still going strong. Nintendo is all about the quality not quantity but when they can consistently sell millions and millions of copies of their fantastic games then the 100 million consoles isn't the be all end all money's made in the games after all and if you look at any top selling list of all time it's heavily Nintendo based.

[CouldHaveYelledUiiW]

IMO, I think you are being fair.

Nintendo has to make some changes- One, of them is not to trust independent 3rd Parties to bring content that they don't want to make- Two, be trained on the new graphics standard before launching a new system- Three, better concept display and commercial conveyance at launch.- Fourth, Decide who your target is and stick with it- but don't send mixed messages.

-Anyway, I will always love Nintendo but much of what I said comes from Iwata, himself.

[DoggyBiscuit]

Things will only get better for the Wii U this is just the beginning

[Fullmetalevolust]

If Nintendo comes out swinging with solid titles from their biggest franchises, it'll sell beyond expectations, I am still waiting for a fire emblem to be announced and to hear more about Shin megami Tensei X F.E.
I also wanna see a Dragon Quest on the WiiU.

[GenericNameHere]

Import a Japanese Wii U. Dragon Quest X is on Wii U, and so are some of the NES DQ games on the eShop. If you want to play DQX, get a VPN changer or whatever and get a Japanese IP Address since US/EU IP Addresses are blocked.

Other than that, if Dragon Quest Heroes does well, tough luck. It will most likely go back to Playstation.

[Summons75]

Again, bouncing back? They had a small stumble but they certainly haven't needed bouncing back seeing as they had a stong lineup of games for the past Twp years on both wiiu and 3ds

Why are we going back to this hate on Nintendo? Bored of xbone dying hard and having one very enticing re-release?

[grizzly_house]

I certainly hope not. This gen they've put out nothing but garbage and have become quite the DLC whores.

I hope they fail and fail hard this gen so they can have something to prove next gen and get back on track to make games for true gamers and not just children and housewives.

[wonderfulmonkeyman]

Subjective or not, your opinion on the quality of Nintendo's games this gen is absolutely wrong.
They've put out quite a few great games and have given third parties an in-road to using characters they'd otherwise never have access to, for spin-offs that have a much better chance of gaining them profits than badly done multiplats.
They've also done a whole lot more for opening up towards indies and core gamers by supporting games like Shovel Knight and Bayonetta 2.

Only a child thinks Nintendo is still aiming solely for grandmas and children at this point.

[GenericNameHere]

And there's still hundreds of thousands of people who think Xbox Live is full of prepubescent kids screaming extreme profanity at each other, and that every Xbox game is a brown shooter starring bald space marines.

Once you've established your self as this or that, you've only got yourself to blame.

[Benjaminkno]

totally agree.
Shovel Knight is superb.

I dont care about sales, WiiU is by far the best experience.
Ps4 is all hype and no bite.

[ritsuka666]

Is Nintendo and the Wii U finally bouncing back?''

Off course Nintendo is already making this since 1889... so next question please?

[AD705]

I can see the wiiu and smash selling a lot of units but lets not forget the xbox one with it's insane bundle deals throughout the rest of this year and the ps4 will probably still sell well also. I just see it as a minor boost and that's it. Lets just think here for a bit. The wiiu has been out for at least 2 years and is at what 7 million? while the xbox one is at 6 million and the ps4 is at 12 million where the ps4 outsold the wiiu in the first 5 months of 2014? The wiiu I don't see it doing much better than the gamecube or the n64 in terms of sales. Even with great exclusives and even so the xbox one and ps4 will have exclusives as well.

[RosweeSon]

Who said xbox one had sold 7.3 million? I can't see why nintendo couldn't steal 2nd place they have the quality to back it up but I think it's clear the 2 main consoles are ps4 and xbox one even if I chose a wii U and ps4 both on their respective launch days only just packed my 360 up in the last week after 9 years won't be getting an xbox one anytime in the next year or so no need in my eyes no major exclusives that say buy the console to play me when I know the console will go below £299 within 6 months but I think it's safe to say xbox one actual sales are nearer the 5-6 million mark im talking actual sales last I heard microsoft only did shipped these days and it was something like 2.4 million shipped in 3 months summer drought or not that was xbox one and 360 combined more of them likely to be people still buying 360's but rushing out and buying xbox ones I don't think so not when 13.5 million ps4's are sold. Xbox I think is just about 3rd at the moment overall out of the big three not a lot in it and do i think they will stay there probably not, shame really as I personally think so far it's ps4 1st wii u 2nd and xbox one 3rd for the consoles and the order of how much I want or wanted them.

[Realplaya]

The best part is selling less and making more. Iknow fans want Nintendo to pay for exclusives but at the end of the day as a company you have to love the fact your company is not swimming under water.