It was only announced earlier this year that the PlayStation 4, which is comfortably beating the snot out of Microsoft and Nintendo in the current generation of consoles, had sold more than 40 million. It’s got nothing on the PlayStation 3 though, which had sold more than 84 million units by the first quarter of last year.
But someone within Nintendo thought the Wii U would be much bigger than that.
Nintendo’s shareholder meeting is famous for some hilariously off-topic moments, but there are often nuggets of useful information in there as well.
As Jason reported, an English translation of the shareholder meeting was only made available this morning. And while there are plenty of comical moments, there was also one where Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima revealed that someone within Nintendo projected the Wii U would sell 100 million units.
“In an internal sales representative meeting, someone projected that we would sell close to 100 million Wii U systems worldwide. The thinking was that because Wii sold well, Wii U would follow suit,” Kimishima said. “I said that, since the Wii had already sold so well, we need to clearly explain the attraction of the Wii U if we are to get beyond that and sell the new system, and that this would be no easy task.
“I was responsible for selling the Wii U, and I knew what was good about it, so I talked with those in charge of sales about the importance of conveying the attractiveness of Wii U to consumers. I am guessing that some of this communication may have come across in a negative tone.”
The Nintendo president added towards the end of the Q&A that the company expected to ship 800,000 Wii U consoles for this fiscal year. NX hardware and games are expected to make up for a decline in Wii U sales, but Kimishima couldn’t give specifics.
The 3DS, meanwhile, has sold more than 58 million units worldwide. Still not as popular as the NES, but miles better than the Wii U’s 12.8 million.
Comments
10 responses to “Someone In Nintendo Thought The Wii U Would Sell 100 Million Units”
Someone at Nintendo is very stupid. Just joking.
All of them are stupid.The Wii U would sell at least one more unit if Nintendo would lower the fecking price.
Make that two
salad for two coming right up
Lower the price and I’m in….seriously, why is the Wii U more expensive than a PS4 now?
And stores still charging $80 for Mario Galaxy on the Wii! Is it a collectors item now?
Nintendo refuses to lower prices in general because they feel that it ‘cheapens’ the image of its products. There’s some great insight in the book Console Wars http://kotaku.com/console-wars-the-kotaku-book-review-1576289967
You guys might laugh at this looking back in hindsight, but considering the original Wii comfortably sold over 100 million units, this isn’t really that stupid.
I dunno if 101.6 is really “comfortably” over but over none the less.
And it is a shareholders meeting. (Pretty much the same smoke up the arse marketing we get in game promotion)
damn,wiiu is ~$428 at all retailers
at EB it comes with either mario kart, mario maker or xenoblade chronicles + Game Party Champions, Nintendo Land & Skylanders Swap Force while every other place is just mario kart or maker with the console
PS4 is $378 for 500gb with no gaem
wiiu is actually cheaper than a ps4
pc is still best tho, consoles these days are nothing more than glorified pc’s and excuses to charge people a subscription fee to play multiplayer online