Nintendo sold fewer than 500,000 Wii U consoles in six months

By Ryan Fleming October 30, 2013

nintendo sold 500000 wii u consoles — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Gamers have purchased a mere 460,000 Wii U units in the last six months, according to Nintendo’s recently released financial statements covering the period from April through the end of September. That’s fewer than the number of people who visited Iceland in 2012. With that figure added in, the total number of Wii U consoles sold since its 2012 release has risen to just 3.91 million.

To rub salt in the wound, the 7-year-old Wii, by comparison, sold 470,000 units during the same period. That puts the total number of Wiis sold at over 100 million since its release in 2006. Wii software also outsold the Wii U over the last six months, moving 14 million games for the soon-to-be-completely discontinued system (it was recently discontinued in Europe and Asia), compared to the Wii U’s 6.3 million

Although the news is fairly horrible for Nintendo, there is one definite bright spot – the Nintendo 3DS. In the last six months, Nintendo’s handheld system sold 3.89 million units, bringing the total number of 3DS units sold to just shy of 35 million. The system also sold an impressive 27 million pieces of software in that same time period.

The Wii U did see a huge boost in sales thanks to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD game and bundle, which released in North America on September 20 while most of the world received it in October, after the fiscal period had ended. In the UK alone, Wii U sales briefly spiked 685-percent. November will also see the release of two big Wii U titles: Wii U Fit and Super Mario 3D World. Of course, both releases come during the launch month of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It could end up being a very, very bad year for Nintendo.

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Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…

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https://twitter.com/GameHistoryOrg/status/1494398068346654720
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Officially, Nintendo’s FAQ on the eShop closures says “this is part of the natural life cycle for any product line as it becomes less used by consumers over time." The answer doesn’t get into specifics and might confuse those still playing games on the system or fans of games only available on Wii U or 3DS. Omdia Principal Analyst Matthew Bailey explains Nintendo’s user base argument in more detail, highlighting the massive gap between the number of people playing the Switch as opposed to the Wii U.
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If one is going off just the numbers, it’s sensible that Nintendo would want to focus on the majority of its players. Bailey admits that “Switch users are already reaping the benefits of Nintendo’s singular first-party development focus on one platform.” Still, one might argue that Nintendo should just let the eShops remain up even if it isn’t actively updating or maintaining them.

Unfortunately, Nintendo doesn’t see that as possible due to cost and security issues. Game Over Thrity, a Twitter user with over 20 years of experience working on IT projects and infrastructure, shed some light on what might have influenced Nintendo’s decision-making in a thread.
“As these systems age, they require patches, security, special contracts, updates, and personnel that know how they were built (and maintained),” his Twitter thread explains. “As time goes on, there are security holes, servers, code, infrastructure, etc., that can’t be brought up to modern standards. It becomes a constant struggle between maintaining legacy systems, paying people to do so, and trying to keep up with global regulations. It’s not cheap by any means. They can’t just ‘leave the lights on’ and stop supporting them. What if someone hacked the payment processor?”
With every passing year, the Wii U and 3DS eShops likely became more expensive to maintain and an increased security risk for the video game publisher. Instead of investing the time and resources into pleasing a smaller amount of players, the easier option is to turn everything off entirely. While he isn’t affiliated with Nintendo, Game Over Thirty’s assessment aligns with what we’ve heard from Nintendo and Omdia.
"The Wii U’s global active installed base will drop under one million in 2022."