With the Wii U finally having 12 months of sales in the UK, we can finally look back and see how it's done for software for its first full year, and we can also compare it to the launches of the Xbox One and PS4. (Well, ok, pre-launch PS4.)
I wrote about it on Gamasutra, where you can find some tables showing YTD and TTM (trailing twelve month) software figures for all the major platforms.
Here's the units able, for easy reference:
After just its initial launch on the market, the Xbox One has sold 475K units of software. That comes with a bit of a caveat, however, since GfK Chart-Track has counted the copies of Forza 5 and FIFA 14 bundled in the box -- as digital copies counted as retail software. As far as I can tell, that's been true before for packaged software inside a bundle, but not for digital copies. If you subtract off the 150K copies bundled with day-one systems, then the Xbox One software falls to around 325K -- still a very respectable figure.
And the PlayStation 4, which launched in the December 2013 retail month, and therefore outside of this table's scope, had already sold 75K units to consumers prior to launch. That doesn't include several more days of sales between the end of the November 2013 retail month and the hardware's release, so actual pre-launch software sales could have been much closer to 100K.
I'd also point out the Nintendo 3DS has been taking up some of the sales lost as the Nintendo DS falls into irrelevance, but that total Nintendo software sales are actually down YOY. (Details on that are in the linked blog.)
Comments and questions welcome. Thanks, guys.
I wrote about it on Gamasutra, where you can find some tables showing YTD and TTM (trailing twelve month) software figures for all the major platforms.
Here's the units able, for easy reference:
The TTM figure for the Wii U is its LTD software sales figure, because last year its launch fell within the December 2012 retail calendar month. That figure currently stands at 675K.
After just its initial launch on the market, the Xbox One has sold 475K units of software. That comes with a bit of a caveat, however, since GfK Chart-Track has counted the copies of Forza 5 and FIFA 14 bundled in the box -- as digital copies counted as retail software. As far as I can tell, that's been true before for packaged software inside a bundle, but not for digital copies. If you subtract off the 150K copies bundled with day-one systems, then the Xbox One software falls to around 325K -- still a very respectable figure.
And the PlayStation 4, which launched in the December 2013 retail month, and therefore outside of this table's scope, had already sold 75K units to consumers prior to launch. That doesn't include several more days of sales between the end of the November 2013 retail month and the hardware's release, so actual pre-launch software sales could have been much closer to 100K.
I'd also point out the Nintendo 3DS has been taking up some of the sales lost as the Nintendo DS falls into irrelevance, but that total Nintendo software sales are actually down YOY. (Details on that are in the linked blog.)
Comments and questions welcome. Thanks, guys.
If Nintendo's going after the children's demographic then they will have to count on the parents to buy games for their kid, whereas with that T-M demographic it's likely the player himself buying games for himself. That's my theory at least.
