The Wii U is in trouble. Yesterday it was revealed that in the last quarter Nintendo’s latest home console had sold only 160,000 units globally, with only 10,000 being sold in Europe. Without any major first party titles releasing soon those figures look like they’ll continue to slide.
It doesn’t help that retail stores are losing faith in the console too. Â ASDA has already stopped selling the console and now, according to MCV, Morrisons has also taken the console off the shelves. This situation isn’t confined to the UK either.
ASDA’s parent company, Walmart, is showing the Basic model out of stock online. Other major chains in the US, such as Target and Best Buy, have also discontinued the sale of the 8GB Wii U model. Kmart, also aren’t showing the model on their online store (via)
However, the biggest blow has to be Gamestop not stocking new Wii U 8GB Basic Model, though used ones are available. It’s one  thing for a supermarket not to stock a console, but when a specialist retailer isn’t seeing enough of a return to bother selling it then that’s a major sign of trouble.
Nintendo still predict the Wii U will sell 9 million units this financial year, though so far the console has only sold 3 million since launch. Without the killer apps, like Mario Kart, appearing soon then Nintendo may need to reevaluate their marketing strategy.
OnlineAssassin77
That’s not good news for Nintendo at all how things change from Wii to WiiU.
Spence1115
GameStop are only stopping the basic one. Perhaps it just didn’t sell well compared to premium.
The Lone Steven
Morrisons sold consoles? I didn’t know that. I knew they sold games by the ones near me don’t ever sell consoles. Ninty really needs to do something about the Wii U as it’s just dying. It’s lacking 3rd party support and their 1st party games are drying up. It’s only a matter of time before they are forced to give up with the Wii U.
Blair Inglis
Steven!
The Lone Steven
Blair!
Steven
Just coming!
xdarkmagician
I wonder if these stores are just clearing space for the PS4 vrs One battle? Or it might be possible that Nintendo is doing a redesign for the Wii U, and are waiting for the stock of old SKUs to decrease. TGS will determine the strength and future of the Wii U, if Nintendo comes out and does a shoulder shrug then we’ll know things are bad… but if they give us Mario, Zelda, and Metroid then theres still hope.
Nintendo is a company that seems to live (and succeed) at the brink, fortunately because of this they’re pretty good at second attempts so I wouldn’t count the Wii U out just yet, or at least not until Amazon stops selling them.
flatspikes
Glad I ditched it early on… Sad it’s flailing now though. Pretty sure Nintendo will stand by it for years to come though.
tactical20
Mario/Zelda/etc.. on PS4 please Nintendo!!
sniper912
agreed, the classic nintendo games on the ps4 would be perfect, everything from one console, xbox one can watch from the sidelines, lol
Jumping Monks
It’s such a shame the Wii U isn’t selling well. I picked one up a few weeks back, and I have to say it is a really nice piece of tech to own, the game pad is sublime, and everything I’ve played on it has been great. It’s easy to see why it hasn’t been selling though, confusion over branding (I mean, really, even my gaming friends didn’t know the Wii U was a whole new console until I showed them, they all thought the gamepad was just an add on for the Wii), and a lack of first party games, with very little third party support. I’m sure things will pick up this year and next as Ninty start releasing Mario and Zelda games etc, but well, I don’t know, things aren’t looking good at the moment.
I’m waiting on Wind Waker HD now!
cam the man
There seems to be a lot of people don’t realise the Wii U is a new console, Ninty should have called it Wii 2 or even something different. But the lack of games seems to be the big problem. Ninty need to get two or three AAA games out before the release of PS4 and X1.
KeRaSh
They really could use a price drop right about now with a huge campaign or even rebranding. With the PS4 and Xbox One launching in a few month, this is Nintendo’s last chance to ramp up Wii U sales before the competition gets as even stiffer.
Drop the basic model to 199€ and the premium SKU to 249€ and for gods sake, release your big sellers already.
Miyamoto mentioned in an interview that they did not realize that HD development was so much work. I guess that’s a transition problem that Sony and Microsoft went through already but that excuse is on the same level as Square Enix saying HD towns are really hard… :/
hazelam
from the massive sales the Wii had, to this.
i think maybe third party games for Wii getting lost in the tidal wave of shovelware has put many publishers off investing time and money in making Wii U games.
add to that the catch 22 situation where publisher aren’t bringing their games to it because sales are too low, and sales are low because not enough publishers are bringing their games to it.
lack of content because of low sales, low sales because of lack of content.
the only ones who can fix that right now are Nintendo, by getting more of their own software out.
a proper Wii U Zelda game would help, a hd version of Windwaker isn’t going to sell the console.
Tomhlord
I’m thinking that a re-name of the console around the time new Nintendo titles release, alongside an aggressive marketing push to send home the new name is a viable option now.
I know that is crazy for a console, but it happens to other products more often than you may think, so why not? It’s not as if WiiU has traction at the minute.