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NPD January 2013 Sales Results [Up7: Wii U 57K (CNET), Vita ~35K, PS3 201K]

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Just to clarify: Wii U did 46k in four weeks, 57k in five weeks.
 
Z

ZombieFred

Unconfirmed Member
46,000 in five weeks? That's more less than 10k a week itself. God fucking damn.

ehlxld.gif


Nintendo panic mode engaged!
 

Linkhero1

Member
At this point, I don't know what Nintendo can do for the next 6-8 months to bounce back. It seems like they're going to pull these numbers until something worth buying comes out.

Nintendo should ditch Wii U, focus on 3DS for hardware, and release their mainline IPs on the HD twins, but not on mobile.

Sony should ditch the Vita and double down on PS4.

Therefore, the market would look like:
PC
PS4 / 720
3DS / iPhone / Android

This will not come to fruition unless Nintendo goes down completely, that's if they go down.
 
I thought this was interesting:

JP numbers (MC)
Week 1
WiiU - 67083
Vita - 33309

Week 2
WiiU - 20715
Vita - 11088

Week 3
WiiU - 16654
Vita - 9036

Week 4
WiiU - 13746
Vita - 9748

Week 5
WiiU - 12959
Vita - 9596

January 2013 Japanese numbers
Wii U - 131157
Vita - 72777

January 2013 NPD numbers
WiiU - 57k (~11.4k per week)
Vita - ~35k (~ 7k per week )

Japan is a much smaller market than the US, yet both Vita and WiiU sold way better in Japan than in the US, greater than 2>1. We know the Vita is dead and I don't think Sony gives a damn, but the WiiU is not far behind. That's really worrisome for the health of the platform in the west.
 

Nerdstrom

Banned
Wii U is 2 years too late, The industry is NOT in trouble and 300k 360s in January proves this. People want to play, they just don't want Wii U. Everyone has a tablet or smartphone. Why would anyone want a low end one tied to a underpowered console with no games? Nintendo screwed up and unless they drop to $200-$249 by e3 its over. They will be CRUSHED by MS and Sony this fall.

The question now is who wins next gen? Sony seems to be aiming for the hardcore and MS seems to be playing off of LIVE along with a more balanced approach. We as a collective may not like it but with Nintendo losing the casuals and Sony NOT having the same appeal toward casuals with LIVE and Kinect, MS may just take next gen surprisingly.
 

sangreal

Member
...What is this article trying to communicate with the 46k number? Especially considering it's just an estimate based upon taking 80% of the 57k number.

They also mention a 4.1 tie ratio for Wii U. I thought our last number was 1.9. How?

They're trying to compare it to 2007 (they say as much)
 
...What is this article trying to communicate with the 46k number? Especially considering it's just an estimate based upon taking 80% of the 57k number.

They also mention a 4.1 tie ratio for Wii U. I thought our last number was 1.9. How?
If this January was 4 weeks like in 2007, then it would be 46k. Isn't that it?
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
They also mention a 4.1 tie ratio for Wii U. I thought our last number was 1.9. How?

Yeah, I don't understand this. Do they talk about this specific month or about LTD? I can perfectly believe 4.1 tie ratio for January, not at all for November + December + January.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Japan is a much smaller market than the US, yet both Vita and WiiU sold way better in Japan than in the US, greater than 2>1. We know the Vita is dead and I don't think Sony gives a damn, but the WiiU is not far behind. That's really worrisome for the health of the platform in the west.

I agree with your overall point about Japanese sales being healthier, but remember that those January numbers are skewed by the first week of January being one of the largest Japanese sales weeks of the year.
 
The question now is who wins next gen? Sony seems to be aiming for the hardcore and MS seems to be playing off of LIVE along with a more balanced approach. We as a collective may not like it but with Nintendo losing the casuals and Sony NOT having the same appeal toward casuals with LIVE and Kinect, MS may just take next gen surprisingly.

If MS target the casual crowd, they'll eventually come unstuck just like Nintendo.

Casual gamers are whores, they'll just go with anyone for the latest thrills and gimmicks, but they get bored easily and quickly and will abandon you in the end.

Nintendo is discovering this with the WiiU.
 

Jhriad

Member
After so many years of Wii domination it is fucking shocking to see these numbers. I didn't think they would regress back to Gamecube era of irrelevancy with their console division. It really seems like Nintendo is nothing now that the casual user base, who pretty much made the Wii the success that it was, has been ripped from under their feet and funneled into the mobile market.

The casual crowd has been gone for years now. Nintendo left the core audience hanging for the entirety of the Wii life cycle so why would we go back to them after that? What compelling reason have they given us? Wii Fit U, Pikmin 3, Nintendoland, and the HD refresh of a game released in 2003? Fuck off Nintendo. Nintendo needs new IP and old IP reinvention not the crap they've been trying to shovel onto us repeatedly. How many New Super Mario Bros XYZ games can we stand before saying "Enough" and moving elsewhere?
 

evangd007

Member
Yeah, I don't understand this. Do they talk about this specific month or about LTD? I can perfectly believe 4.1 tie ratio for January, not at all for November + December + January.

$15 million of software / $60 MSRP / 57k units = ~4.3

Seems like it.
 

Jarmel

Banned
Yea for this to be a 5 week 'month' and the numbers are still that ridiculously low means that February is going to be a blast.
 

idlewild_

Member
Yeah, I don't understand this. Do they talk about this specific month or about LTD? I can perfectly believe 4.1 tie ratio for January, not at all for November + December + January.

I would assume they were talking about the month. Given that Wii U software sales were < $15m, that seems like a reasonable tie ratio for the month with the console selling only 57k units.
 
Wii U is 2 years too late, The industry is NOT in trouble and 300k 360s in January proves this. People want to play, they just don't want Wii U. Everyone has a tablet or smartphone. Why would anyone want a low end one tied to a underpowered console with no games? Nintendo screwed up and unless they drop to $200-$249 by e3 its over. They will be CRUSHED by MS and Sony this fall.

The question now is who wins next gen? Sony seems to be aiming for the hardcore and MS seems to be playing off of LIVE along with a more balanced approach. We as a collective may not like it but with Nintendo losing the casuals and Sony NOT having the same appeal toward casuals with LIVE and Kinect, MS may just take next gen surprisingly.

A price drop won't do much IMHO. I'll copy what I said in another thread:

A price drop by itself is not going to fix the WiiU's problems. Like it or not, Nintendo will have to compete with PS3/360 AND Orbis/Durango. Based on what we know and is rumored, the WiiU will be closer in power to the former rather than the latter. PS3 and especially the 360 are way overdue for a price drop. In America, Nintendo needs to try to catch the 360/720, in EU, and to a lesser extent, Japan, it needs to catch the PS3. I think we'll see the PS3 drop to $199/EU199/Y19,990 and maybe $169/EU169/Y16,990 for the 12GB version. We'll probably see the 360 for $149/EU149/Y14,990 as well. I don't see Nintendo dropping the WiiU's price to $199, but even if they do, they might not be the cheapest alternative to the leader in each market.

They need games, but considering how NSMBU didn't really sell consoles, I'm not convinced a Zelda WW HD, SSB, MK, Mario 3D, WiiFit U will either. They will definitely help and will be big sellers, but won't reach the statuses of their predecessors. I think Nintendo needs to come up with something new but we'll see, MK7 and NSMB2 definitely sold a lot more than I thought they would, even if they didn't reach the numbers of their predecessors on the DS.

I agree with your overall point about Japanese sales being healthier, but remember that those January numbers are skewed by the first week of January being one of the largest Japanese sales weeks of the year.

Good point, but even if we completely ignore the first week, the WiiU and Vita still sold better in Japan than in the US, with one less week. And I would put healthier in quotations, sales there are not really healthy either, it's just not as horrible as here due to it being a much smaller market.
 

Nerdstrom

Banned
If MS target the casual crowd, they'll eventually come unstuck just like Nintendo.

Casual gamers are whores, they'll just go with anyone for the latest thrills and gimmicks, but they get bored easily and quickly and will abandon you in the end.

Nintendo is discovering this with the WiiU.

Nah. Those casuals are sucking up "entertainment". Look at 360 and it's LIVE numbers. People moved from the Wii to 360. U offers almost nothing in comparison. As long as 720 offers a nice jump and a great price and takes the entertainment thing up a notch they'll do fine. Ps4 will have to be a generational leap above plus match LIVE of this gen to even matter.
 

donny2112

Member
Next month will be even worse for the Wii U.

If it's still sub-60k in March, then that's the ball game. Either the price has to be cut aggressively along with a bunch of rushed software or the system will quickly become permanently irrelevant.
You misunderstood. I think, if they don't get those numbers for the March NPD (which we'll get in April), then they need to price cut and rush software.
This does bring up a good point that a relaunch is possible.

But it also not only assumes they will play their cards right, but that they also have cards to play right now.

Just want to say that I agree. From earlier in the thread.

Nintendo made a really hard decision with the 3DS to drop the cost by 1/3 just 5 months after launch. I think it's worth considering another hard choice and change the name of the console to Wii 2 just three months after launch.
this would constitute an actual relaunch. the wii u name is awful, but i doubt they'll do it. it would mean screwing up production lines everywhere. it would be worse than shutting down production like they did for the gamecube in 2002.
Yes, it would almost be a relaunch, but it'd be hard to relaunch worse than the launch, and it just might clear up a long-term problem in name confusion. 100 billion yen operating profit seems like a very bad goal for next year. Better to take a 100 billion yen operating loss and drop the price by $100 to coincide with a popular game launch, like Wii Fit U could be.
Nintendo can't afford to deplete their money like that. 100 billion yen operating loss would be devastating. Nintendo can't just keep piling up losses for years as much as we talking about them being able to survive decades of losses they could not survive that kind of loss for very long.
Unfortunately/Fortunately, they can. At this point with 3DS, they were forced into making hard decisions. About the only way I can see for them to meaningfully turn things around is to make another hard (possibly even harder) decision with Wii U. Changing the name after launch would be a hard choice. Swallowing huge, huge losses to sell hardware would be a hard choice. Don't see an easy choice helping much, at this point. Sink or swim.
On the other hand, if that gambit fails they lose a billion dollars this year and continue to bleed money to the point where they would probably be forced to discontinue it to prevent that kind of loss again. They need to be aggressive, but I don't know if putting your entire system on the line would be worth it.
Is it less risky to sit back and do nothing? Is the cost of inaction not possibly even greater than that, long-term? That's what I mean by hard choices. It could be worse if they make a huge gamble and it fails, but it could also be the worst to sit back and do nothing.
If Nintendo does nothing, it'll still sell a paltry amount for at least a few months. When games start coming out, it'll increase some, but still be pretty bad. Assuming a $50 price cut in August, it'll increase a bit and have something like a DS second Christmas, and probably be on track to undersell GameCube in the U.S. in the first 4 years. It won't die. Nintendo doesn't need big sales to justify keeping a console around. It just won't amount to much in the long run. It may or may not eventually have a library worth looking fondly upon in hindsight.

Nintendo won't be out of the console business even if they do nothing drastic with Wii U. They'll just be shoved back to GameCube-era relevance.
 

evangd007

Member
Nah. Those casuals are sucking up "entertainment". Look at 360 and it's LIVE numbers. People moved from the Wii to 360. U offers almost nothing in comparison. As long as 720 offers a nice jump and a great price and takes the entertainment thing up a notch they'll do fine. Ps4 will have to be a generational leap above plus match LIVE of this gen to even matter.

I seriously doubt that whatever the 720 will offer in terms of entertainment will warrant an upgrade for the casuals. They'll be perfectly satisfied with what the 360 offers.
 
What can Nintendo do?

Changing the box and "re launching" the system with a new marketing campaign is the only short term action they can do right now.

Clock is ticking and I don't think waiting for other consoles to enter the mix before doing it is the right course of action.
 
Nintendo needs to do Ambassador Redux. By summer, slash the price ($50 doesn't cut it) and give free shit to the early adopters.

This should have been done with the Vita last fall. Too late.
 

Bulzeeb

Member
What can Nintendo do?

Changing the box and "re launching" the system with a new marketing campaign is the only short term action they can do right now.

Clock is ticking and I don't think waiting for other consoles to enter the mix before doing it is the right course of action.

well, the "re laucnh" with the Mario games and MH in japan did help the 3DS I guess they just need to do something like that again
 

jvm

Gamasutra.
Nintendo needs to do Ambassador Redux. By summer, slash the price ($50 doesn't cut it) and give free shit to the early adopters.

This should have been done with the Vita last fall. Too late.
I know it seems crazy, but I think the $50 PS+ program is kind of that for PSV. You get a bunch of games free right out of the gate, for less than the cost of two PSV games. Also free PS3 games, if you have one.

I'm not saying it makes sense to us but I bet it makes sense to someone inside Sony.

(And, yes, to play those games you then have to buy a bigger memory card, more than likely. So awful.)
 
GAF isn't often right (especially when it comes to Nintendo) but we called it on the name confusion. You would have thought the 3DS name confusion would have made them reconsider the Wii U branding but they still went ahead with it.

The best course of action for them now without completely embarrassing themselves is to just drop the Wii brand entirely and rebrand the system as the Nintendo U. It's short and easy to communicate and won't force them to do an absolute rebrand of the entire game line.

Who at NCL thought it was a great idea to extend the branding of a dead console? Certainly not the millions of consumers who bough the Wii in 2009-10 and then had an unsupported platform by the next year.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
GAF isn't often right (especially when it comes to Nintendo) but we called it on the name confusion. You would have thought the 3DS name confusion would have made them reconsider the Wii U branding but they still went ahead with it.

The best course of action for them now without completely embarrassing themselves is to just drop the Wii brand entirely and rebrand the system as the Nintendo U. It's short and easy to communicate and won't force them to do an absolute rebrand of the entire game line.

Who at NCL thought it was a great idea to extend the branding of a dead console? Certainly not the millions of consumers who bough the Wii in 2009-10 and then had an unsupported platform by the next year.

This is exactly why people need to be fired.
 
(And, yes, to play those games you then have to buy a bigger memory card, more than likely. So awful.)

They should have sent every registered owner a 16GB card last fall. It's gotta cost them like $10 to make tops, but now we're getting into 'Ambassador' territory.

Rayman Legends is making more sense now. If Nintendo can repair this situation like they did with the 3DS, Ubisoft *will* sell more units this fall, despite current fan outrage. I'm sure Ubisoft had a very good idea as to just how soft the hardware sales are.
 
Nah. Those casuals are sucking up "entertainment". Look at 360 and it's LIVE numbers. People moved from the Wii to 360. U offers almost nothing in comparison. As long as 720 offers a nice jump and a great price and takes the entertainment thing up a notch they'll do fine. Ps4 will have to be a generational leap above plus match LIVE of this gen to even matter.

This is pretty week analysis. This is exactly what people were saying about how all PS2 owners were guaranteed to jump to PS3. Some did but many either didn't buy a console or went to another console. It doesn't work that way, only the core audience is very likely to "jump" with a company to the next gen. Casuals have been proven to be easily attracted by any side. There will be plenty of those who will stay on 360 as long as COD and Madden come out on it.
 

Azure J

Member
i think people are using name confusion to excuse away an unappealing product

I think it's both. It's unappealing to most in the know and the stragglers they could hope to get are all confused because "what the fuck is this system about exactly?"
 
i think people are using name confusion to excuse away an unappealing product
I hope that you mean unappealing in that it has no game library because if I see one more poster equating console power with console success I'm going to scream and then everyone in my office is going to look at me funny.
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
This is pretty week analysis. This is exactly what people were saying about how all PS2 owners were guaranteed to jump to PS3. Some did but many either didn't buy a console or went to another console. It doesn't work that way, only the core audience is very likely to "jump" with a company to the next gen. Casuals have been proven to be easily attracted by any side. There will be plenty of those who will stay on 360 as long as COD and Madden come out on it.

Perhaps this sort of thing is why the '3rd console curse' usually happens.

Console 1: it's an experiment! We don't know what will happen.

Console 2: everyone loves us! It wasn't a fluke! We're unstoppable!

Console 3: what happened? We did the same thing three times in a row, isn't that what you want? What do you mean something else attracted your attention?
 

gcubed

Member
I hope that you mean unappealing in that it has no game library because if I see one more poster equating console power with console success I'm going to scream and then everyone in my office is going to look at me funny.

unappealing as in 1) it has a bare software library 2) it offers little to nothing above current consoles with much larger libraries, support, and lower priced.
 

Linkhero1

Member
I don't think the name is good, but I can't imagine it's anywhere near as big a problem as the price and lack of software.

I feel as if it's more of lack of marketing and software. If they had compelling software and was marketed well then it would be doing a ton better than it currently is. The name is shitty and kind of does a disservice to the console.
 
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