Some very bad news for Nintendo folks. Incredibly bad, like worst selling month for a Nintendo home console under Satoru Iwata.
I’ll post a story about the full NPD January 2013 data later tonight but the Wii U hardware sales deserve their own post.
Gamasutra is reporing that Nintendo’s new HD console sold only 45k-59k units over the course of a 5-week tracking period in January. For reference the GameCube sold 60k units in January 2006.
It is no secret that the Wii U lacks any compelling new releases. Rayman Legends was delayed until September, and the next batch of big titles are coming in March. Monster Hunter and Lego City hopefully push the system closer to 100k units, but I don’t think even they can do it.
February’s NPD numbers are going to be an absolute slaughtering for the Wii U unless something changes. They’d be lucky to break 30k units next month.
I hope for Nintendo’s sake that Gamasutra has some information incorrect but it doesn’t look like they do.
We’ll update with more industry responses to this data . Nintendo has very little wiggle room since they already sell the Wii U at a loss.
