XavierMike

I hope they do another ambassadorrogram if there is a price drop.

Michael Corvin

That wouldn't make much sense. The Ambassador Program is a perk for people that bought in at full price.

Adam Tyner

I think that's what he's saying: if there's a price drop, throw a perk at the people who paid full price.

On the other hand, the 3DS price drop was only 5 months in. If we get a price drop in, say, October, that'll be almost a year after the console launched.

I'll cheerfully take ambassador perks, of course, but I don't think it's necessary for a price drop after nearly a year. (The PS3 dropped $100 in less time than this, and I don't remember people really being up in arms about that.)

atrium

That is horrendous. Holy smokes.

Gizmo

From what I've read, the Wii U has sold more units in it's release to date compared to the PS3 (in Japan, maybe world wide?). Something like it did in 33 weeks what it took the PS3 38 weeks to do.

But no one seems to care since it's Sony.

It'll be fine once the bigger titles hit. The PS4 and XBone has bigger issues to face if the Wii U is any indication.

RichC2

It's also nearly half the price of the PS3 was at the time and more readily available.

The Wii U is it's own enemy, it has no games and no games were released for it in damn close to its first year. They don't call big games "system sellers" just for the sake of saying it.

Gizmo

PS3 was readily available a month after release.

Like what the PS3 and XBone will deal with, gaming just isn't what it once was. Those $1-$5 games on phones and tablets are not helping. Far too many options to 'game' nowadays.

RichC2

I honestly didn't start seeing PS3s on shelf until late Jan of '07. But I guess that's only a month later than what you said.

That said, the PS3 had sold 3.68m by the following March. The Wii U has sold 3.61m as of June 30th.

Also yes, gaming has changed, but it's tough to buy that being the cause of Wii U's terrible first year (it just isn't worth owning yet), especially when the PS3 is selling 120,000 units a week, six years into its life with a $250 price tag.

Let's see what sales are in Canada this weekend.

Michael Corvin

Correct. Late Jan-early Feb. is when they started becoming readily available.

Gizmo

The PS3 came out 7 years ago. 7 years later we now play games on Phones and walk around with tablets. Compare the PS3 to PS2 sales.

PS3 has a large base of games available. It's going to sell just fine when you can choose from hundreds of games.

Basic Wii U is discontinued.

RichC2

Yes it is, still a damn good price on it. And a system is going to sell like crap when you have nothing to choose from.

Compare total console sales from this era to last.

Gamecube (21.74) + Dreamcast (8.2m) + PS2 (157.8m) + Xbox (24.65m) = 212.39m
PS3 (78m) + Xbox 360 (78m) + Wii (100m) = 256m

Basically though it seems like the Wii was a fluke for Nintendo, and they're going back to their GameCube and N64 numbers (21.74m and 32.93m units respectively)

The system is currently a flop, doesn't mean it will stay that way. Nintendo is the Disney of the gaming world, their products will sell, they just need to put them out there. It's like Pixar not putting out a movie and wondering why they're selling fewer toys.

Gizmo

It launched in November. It was readily available in January but I would see them all the time in December. Probably more region-related for some people.

Gizmo

Yeah, good price. Sales will tick up once bigger games hit.

RichC2

Oh yeah, and the 3DS is the #1 selling gaming device in the world right now, by a long shot, and is less than a month away from outselling the Nintendo 64. There's something about that that suggests $1 games aren't completely taking over.

fumanstan

The total sales numbers aren't far off with the PS3, but the Wii U seems incredibly front loaded on it's initial release in November and December, followed by some awful months. I think the PS3 and 360 had more steady sales, which strikes me as a better sign. I could be wrong, but I guess we'll see.

mattysemo247

I don't think comparing next gen systems to the Wii U is an accurate comparison. People are hungry for next gen system. So as long as they can keep stocking them on the shelves, it shouldn't take very long for either system to pass the Wii U sales figures.

Coral

While it's true gaming is seeing some customers being taken away due to gaming on smartphones and tablets - the demographic this will mostly effect is the casual gamers.

This is part of the reason Nintendo is feeling the pain with Wii-U - the casual gamers represent a lot of the people who purchased the last generation Wii. Many of which probably haven't turned on their Wii in months or years - just collecting dust. There's no way they were going to bite on the Wii-U, especially with smartphones and tablets being good enough. Nintendo made a horrible assumption thinking that what happened last generation will happen this generation.

Throw in the fact that the Wii-U naming was a terrible decision marketing-wise. The name makes it seem like a slight upgrade from the Wii - which according to some isn't THAT far from the truth anyway.

I don't see Nintendo recovering much. There sales may pick up a bit with price drops and more games available - but overall they're going to eat a sh*t sandwich this time around.

MS and Sony probably won't sell as well this generation compared to last generation, but they won't feel the pain as much as Nintendo. They'll still have the attention of hardcore gamers who want something truly next-gen, unlike the Wii-U.

Michael Corvin

Also, the PS3 had competition with the red hot Wii and the year old 360. The WiiU has had an entire year to themselves. That's the embarrassing part of those sales numbers. MS turned a year head start into an advantage with the 360. Nintendo pissed it away.

Gizmo

3DS is $169, which is the cheapest way to get into "real" gaming right nows. Well, aide from a DSi, which I don't believe is getting any major new games.

Nintendo just fucked up their releases. They spaced Pikmin 3 way to far out, and not having another 'quality' game or two padded in before this November was just a bad idea. They did a similar thing with the 3DS at launch.

Wii U is next gen. Some people will not agree, but some of the games that have and will come out for Wii U visually look amazing. Just look at how MS and Sony have/did copy ideas from the Wii and Wii U with Wiggle/Waggle schemes, "glass", Kinect etc.

Like always, anyone getting a Wii U as a replacement instead of a XBone or PS4 is just silly. I don't care much about shooters or sports, so a Wii U is perfect for me. The one and only 360 game I'm buying this year is going to be South Park.

Gizmo

Here's the thing - Nintendo has the 3DS. It's a money printing machine like it's younger brother the DS was.

Nearly every other aspect of Sony's business is failing (home video, movies, music, electronics etc.), so if the PS4 is not a huge hit, they don't have a saving grace. Same can be said about MS with their Surface RT which is looking deader each day (just had a price drop). Windows 8 is also a dog.

Nintendo does two things - they make games and Nintendo hardware. The 3DS will and can prop them up for a long, long time. This isn't a Virtual Boy. Nintendo will stick with it for a long time and adjust if needed. Sadly they can't rebrand it the Nintendo U, which is what it should have been called. MS has the money to prop up the XBone, but they having plenty of other failing projects. Sony, well, you can look at their financials.

RichC2

Eh, the Wii is $129 with 2 games, I consider that as real gaming as the Wii U at this point.

Long story short, the Wii U is having a terrible time right now and there is no turnaround in sight for the near future. Still it's not completely out by any stretch. It also is not indicative of what's to come from the PS4 and Xbox One, it was simply a poorly thought out system launch.

The one thing Nintendo didn't think about was the fact the Wii was a 2nd console for a lot of people, so multiplatform is not a huge seller for them, especially when it's getting versions with inferior framerates. There's nothing out there that says "Look how awesome the Wii U is!" yet so you don't get parents and the casual crowd, especially not when the regular Wii which it has yet to differentiate itself from is nearly 1/3rd the price.

fujishig

Why isn't there a turnaround in sight? There are finally decent 1st party games coming out (hopefully not delayed) and that's what seemed to turn around the 3DS, which was pretty worthless early on.

RichC2

"near future" I actually meant financial quarter but yeah, if Nintendo manages to get some grade A first party titles out there they could get the Wii U back up to the 25 - 30m sold zone eventually.

Coral

Well some of those things you mention I agree with, some I don't - but I'm not really talking about overall companies and all their products. Just talking about the next-gen consoles.

Nintendo may still make a profit due to the DS systems, but the Wii-U is taking a painful bite out of their financials - they're most certainly losing money on that console and not gaining it back in Wii-U game sales.

And at this point I don't think a turnaround is likely at all... the odds are stacked against the Wii-U at this point. It's already been 8 months and there's still no reason for anyone to get excited about it... and in only 3 months XONE is out... and 4 months for the PS4.
Nintendo has an extremely small window to turn it around - and many are just going to wait for MS and Sony.

Nintendo over-reached last gen and fooled everyone with the Wii. But they also fooled themselves this time around with the Wii-U. By the time the XONE and PS4 are out, the Wii-U will be discounted a decent amount.

Adam Tyner

Well, they're not going to turn it around -- not meaningfully, anyway -- before the other consoles launch. Nintendo won't have enough high-profile games ready in time. I think they'll start to be competitive riiiiight around the time the other two launch, basically having wasted a full year accomplishing nothing.

It depends on what you mean by "turn it around" too, I guess. Even if Nintendo is a distant third behind the PS4 and Xbox One (and I fully expect them to be), that doesn't necessarily mean it's a failure. You can be the least successful and still make money hands over fist. Of course, you can also be the least successful and hemorrhage cash without having anything to show for it. I think they'll do alright, though.

I don't know if Nintendo will be able to pull out of this tailspin as far as marketshare and all that goes, but as long as the games are there, I'll be happy. There's some sunny stuff on the horizon, and I'm really excited about the release slate we've seen so far. It's just...the level of incompetence on nearly every level is baffling. A confusing name for the console, a lack of a killer app, zero marketing, no games, getting caught offguard by the resources required to support HD graphics when every other Japanese developer was griping about this in 2005, making the gamepad the central focus of the console but hardly ever finding a way to uniquely take advantage of it in the available games, an online experience that still lags far behind everyone else..ugh. But only Nintendo makes Nintendo games, so they can count on my support.