Wii U UK sales spike 685%, thanks to Wind Waker HD

Source: MCV UK, GoNintendo

Well, that's something.

Percentages never say much.

Numbers would be good.

This is a good thing how? It just confirms what everyone is saying. Nintendo runs on nostalgia. Nothing more.

Ah, yes. The ironic "Nostalgia" quote.

To echo others we really need numbers.

This could be 100 sales last week and 785 sales this week for all we know.

What is a 685% increase over 12? 82.2?

Wont buy....

Till i finish OOT.

Probably also because of the price drop of the WiiU model that isn't a rip off

Nintendo sells consoles with software, not hardware. The moment Mario Kart, the new Zelda and a 3D Mario come out, the console will sell like water.

lol, what an original spin. Never seen this response before.

What is a 685% increase of nothing?

@Demonjoe93: It is the truth, tough.

How many new franchises has Nintendo made in the past 10 years?

How bout dem Braves? lol

Go Red Sox!

Hmm whats a 685% increase of 3

What I find funny is how the failing of the Wii U comes off as some complex algorithm to Nintendo that is impossible to solve. All the system needs is Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Smash Bros, Mario Kart and it will start selling like crazy. Get with it, Nintendo.

Just ordered my Wii U Zelda bundle and Wii U pro yesterday, can't wait.

Time to buy a Wii U people

Woah you're a genius, make more games, I bet they didn't think of that! The way Nintendo is acting you'd think we don't live in a magical universe where games grow on trees and don't take time or money to produce, thank God we do though!

Well, see you guys later I'm off for a ride on my Unicorn!

Without hard figures I don't buy this, I remember just a few months ago when they tried claiming sales spiked 875% in UK, which was a lie, their figure for that came because the Wii U went from Amazon's 390th rank in video game sales to the 40th rank for a single days sales, keep in mind these are qualitative numbers and not quantitative figures, anyhow the different between 390 and 40 is 350, and 350/40 is 8.75 or 875%, where they got that number before. And since there's no actual sales figures my guess is that they're being misleading somewhere.

As for the previous fudging of the facts from Nintendo, that sales spike was attributed to ASDA liquidating their Wii U inventory, selling them for £149.99/£199.99 for 8GB Standard / 32GB Deluxe, so other online retailers slashed their prices to stay competitive, that's where the spike came from then, not the assertion at the time that sales spiked as an outcome of the Xbox One reveal.

Plus, nothing in this article points from what period to period figures are being compared. Plus take into account gamers knew the Wind Waker HD Deluxe bundle was being released a good amount of time prior to it releasing, so if sales spike in any period since its release, my guess is that sales lowered in the period before in anticipation of the WWHD Deluxe bundle. So there's nothing to be stoked about here, they haven't provided any numbers, and furthermore this news is isolated to a region and doesn't appear to be a global trend.

@bobbetybob:

That's why they botched the launch of the console. You launch a console when it's in line with a line up of games. If they knew no good games would come out for 2 years after the release of the system, then why did they release it so quickly?

This actually boggles my mind more than anything. I wouldn't expect any of the console manufacturers to use so little to keep their console up for that many months. The delays on Pikmin 3 and Zelda were probably used to sustain the console over the next few months after the first few low tier first parties dropped the ball.

I'm guessing the only plausible thing to think aside from incompetence was that they probably expected third party releases, but didn't expect such backlash in regards to the problems with the WiiU from third party devs and consumers.

You can't have any sort of % increase of 0 in the first place. If you knew anything of math you would know your attempt at humour makes no sense.

Just let them have their fun. It's a long running joke. :P

There are sooooo many people out there who don't know that maths.

I can't say I know how many consoles normally sell in EU, or UK for that matter. I'm guessing not too many if the percentage is that high, but its encouraging that it went up.

Because they were expecting better third party support? Look at the Xbox One and PS4, they're not exactly swimming with first party games and exclusives for the first year either, you've got a couple at launch, one each in the middle of the year and then a few next Christmas. But they'll get by because of the multiplatform games, which is what the WiiU's been lacking in.

And they launched when they did because the Wii was already dead and they needed to get a new console out before the hype for the Xbox One and PS4 completely drowned them out. Even though this first year has been bad it's still given them an edge over the competition because they've managed to grow a library that's better than what the Xbone and PS4 will be launching with.

@AznbkdX: Actually if they were selling the console at a loss, that kinda explains it to me. That and the shareholders getting upset about Wii sales dwindling.

I guess you could say that as well. There were several things that lead to those disparities though from "no games" for literally two or so years, trying to bring out products without proper adverts, and not fixing up wrinkles that can occur in the first few months. You can attribute that last bit to every console launch, but the WiiU isn't exactly anything really new when it comes to the power under the hood. Of course there is more to it than power, but some of the online bits and such that utilize this new architecture should have had some inspiration from its competitors. Those several years of looking at the Xbox and PS3 should have been more productive than that. I'm shifting the spectrum here but its ridiculous that they got themselves into this situation to begin with to even have investors doubting them or even a larger loss per console.

Overall the WiiU release was more being reactive than proactive. I would think companies would learn the difference between the two after so many years.

Oh please, Nintendo hasn't had 3rd party support since the Super Nintendo. If they were banking on 3rd party support, they dug their own grave.

To be fair, they had plenty of third party support for the most part, its just none of it was noticeable this gen. The last few gens weren't that bad, although admittedly it did taper off from SNES. The only problem is that the Wii generation, which was the longest generation by far (I think) had a bloat of new "quality" IPs running through it. The Wii was just not the appealing choice for these games compared to the PS3 and 360, so it missed out on that treasure trove for the most part. That's probably one reason why you hear devs making the excuse that "Nintendo games only sell on Nintendo systems" I would think. Who knows what would have happened to them if they released something at least close to the 360/PS3 when this stuff happened?

Should of, could of, but didn't I guess you could say. They probably weren't sure if they could get some of those newly formed/reformed devs from the 6th gen back onto their side, but its not hard to have some sort of hope for it. Times moved a little too quickly, so it looks like its not going so well. Those devs have started to get used to the differences between Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony just based on only 7 or so years.

The Wii missed out on a lot of 3rd party games because of its underpowered hardware. Where developers would just port games like Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto, Resident Evil 5/6, Final Fantasy XIII, Mass Effect etc between the 360 and PS3, they weren't able to do that with the Wii. It was a much easier process putting a 360 game on PS3 and visa versa because of the similarities in hardware performance. The Wii was so far behind specification wise that 3rd party devs would have to build games entirely from the ground up for it. It just wasn't feasible from a development standpoint concerning money, time, risk and reward. For the most part, developers just skipped the Wii entirely because of this, but in the few cases they didn't, you just got some crappy version of Call of Duty or whatever else game that was built from the ground up and exclusive to the Wii for all the wrong reasons. For instance, Call of Duty on Wii is not the same as Call of Duty on 360 and PS3.

So while Nintendo had already burnt bridges with 3rd party developers, deterring these devs from making games for Nintendo systems even when they had good hardware like with the N64 and GameCube, Nintendo further alienated themselves by making their hardware so inferior that it's not even economically feasible to develop 3rd party games on their systems period. The same exact thing goes for the Wii U. Nintendo already has a bad relationship with 3rd parties, but the fact that the Wii U is essentially a PS3 and a 360, it's going to be missing out on all the PS4/Xbox One multiplatform games simply because it won't be able to handle them. This is added on top of the fact that Wii U is missing out on PS3/360 games like GTA5 simply because 3rd party devs do not like Nintendo.

Long story short, there are a multitude of reasons why Nintendo shouldn't rely on 3rd party. If Nintendo was relying on 3rd parties to keep the Wii U afloat while they waited for their 1st party big kickers to come out, they are dumb as bricks. They've done nothing but alienate themselves from 3rd parties for the last 20 years.

Useless information. Even the original article refused to provide actual sales numbers.

So we basically agree then. :)

I was just trying to be slightly more optimistic. Kind of hard to do when they put so much trust into devs that already shunned there advance last generation, and for good reason. They probably shouldn't have started on the weak end of tech, and kept running with it, since they could have found a more reliable and more willing customer base with a more dev friendly system. I understand innovation, but its disheartening to see pyrrhic victories go on like that. Some foresight would have done wonders, and it's better to give some future proofing to your consoles just in case. Playing games at sub HD level with a little bit more money invested in the brawn of the system probably wouldn't have drove them away.

@nintendoboy16: I don't follow? Where's the irony.

Increase is good, cause this game flop in Japan...want to see numbers tho. Especially US numbers..if it does well there..then its great! :)

People who are controlled by nostalgia wouldn't buy/play anything new but would always prefer the older games. The fact that people are buying new Nintendo games instead of just sticking to the old Nintendo games of the past which is nostalgic shows they are not controlled by nostalgia but by familiarity. Nintendo IPs are very familiar that's why they sell. Honestly, people don't know what nostalgia means. That's why it's pretty idiotic and ironic when some people say they always prefer the older Nintendo games and deem the people buying the new ones being nostalgic.

Well they kinda did, when Wii U launch...Nintendo pretty much only put out 2 games Nintendo Land & NSMBU. The rest were 3rd parties port with a few exception like ZombiU, then games like Metro which were shown, then pulled, Aliens:CM (turned out crap) got pulled too...They were hoping for 3rd parties support but didn't pan out & that's why Wii U is in its sad state. :P Times have change but Nintendo didn't...Bethesda said it best tho..something along the lines of its no longer just build any machine and expect us to support it. They should consulted more with 3rd parties more like MS/Sony did before building their new system.

Those extra 18 consoles sold will make 3rd parties take notice of Nintendo's longterm strategy with Wii U. They will be sorry they ever abandoned such a beast of a console.

Indeed and by that time that a real new Zelda comes, near 2019-2020, the console will hopefully be 150$ or Zelda will be released on WiiU2 at the same time, like Zelda TP was released on both GC and Wii, with vastly better graphics and will render WiiU totally useless

Classic Nintendo, just dont buy a WiiU unless a Zelda is announced and revealed for it at least

@loosingENDS: Or just never buy it because Nintendo needs to learn that their 1st party isn't enough to warrant buying a console.

A lot, Xenoblade being one of them?

wow from selling 13 consoles per week it now is selling over 27 systems!!! apocalypse.

Numbers or it did not happen.

its the only system that has and has coming games that dont suck in 2013-2014 for many... so yeah, im not suprised a lot more people are snapping them up right now.

holy crap, that is a lot. I am not surprised though. But they could have done a lot of things to give out HD releases in the spring when there were no games at all

Name me a single game that is better than Destiny, TW3, DA3 or Dark Souls 2. Nothing on WiiU comes even close and if you think than solo MMO game called X is what rivals what will be available on next gen LOL

You are very bad at maths.

take your pick...

mario 3d world , sonic lost world, X, mario kart 8, samsh bros U, DK tropical freeze ...id have more fun or just as much with those.

Well based on little research by Jan.2013 in the U.K media report they sold 40k-80k units. Another report mentioned 3 month (Mar.-Jun. which was considered a low) sales figures at 160,000 which is a slice of the over all picture. Given this little info Wii U sold either 275k-548k or 1.096 million if work with the low 3 month sales point. I'm inclined to use the lowest 3 month sales point.