Nintendo Sold a Bunch of Hardware Last Week

Is 400k for week 1 good or bad for a console launch? :s

I don't expect it to do really well, but I'll buy one, because I like video games.

@Droop said:

Is 400k for week 1 good or bad for a console launch? :s

The most accurate way to put it is 'expected' for a console launch, the wii u sold an expected amount in it's first week.

I appreciate the picture of Isaiah Triforce Johnson, Alex.

My gamestop has a TON of them. Beaumont, Texas if your in the area and looking. Glad it sold well, not picking one up as I am a simple poor college student

Just went to Wal-Mart today and they still had two deluxe editions in stock, so I grabbed one and NSMBU and ZombiU. My local Target also had two of the basic editions in stock yesterday. So, certainly not selling out, but not available everywhere.

Triforce is so great, also good for Nintendo, hopefully they get the software end up and running and really hit it out of the park at the next E3. 

I got the basic system, an external hard drive, NSMBU, Zombie U, and one of the sexy black controllers. I love it so far, though the system update when bringing it online was annoying as hell.

I've got one preordered here in Australia. Waiting for the Friday launch.

If I ever get one, I'm not spending a single cent on digital content until Nintendo can guarantee that they can't be lost if the console should break and that I can get them back as easily as I can install games to several computers like steam. They are behind the times in that aspect unfortunately at the moment.

Still intrigued by the system despite my main issue with it but I'll play the waiting game for a year to see how the game library shapes up throughout. Next E3 will be very interesting for Nintendo (as well as everyone else at this point).

@Thoseposers: I remember there being massive supply issues with that launch like 5 consoles per store at launch.

Good , I hope Nintendo does well even if they don't really deserve at times .

Wait. How does units still on store shelves every day since launch equate to "essentially sold out at retail"? I was able to walk into Best Buy at 2pm on launch day and pick one up off the stack they had in the middle of the video games section.

Heck, I only bought one because I tried to talk myself out of it, through saying "They'll be sold out, then you won't have to worry about it for half a year. Sure, if they have one in stock, go ahead and get it." ZombiU is pretty great so far, though.

Someone is stretching the truth here about their sales, either the writer, or Nintendo.

It looks like there are Wii U's in most stores around me. I'm holding off on purchasing it until I see a game that I must have.

That being said, I am a PC gamer and almost without a doubt will never be purchasing a xbox 720 or PS4. Nintendo has been the only thing to attract me to consoles in the past few years.

Bought a Wii U and downloaded NSMBU and ZombiU. Thinking about nabbing Trine 2. Oh and I impulse purchased MIghty Switch Force HD.
Really enjoying the system but I have a dire sense that this could be a Dreamcast-esque console but its too soon to tell.

Really hoping it does well enough, I enjoy there being 3 decent consoles out there that can survive in today's market.

That said, I'm not buying a Wii U until it's feature complete and has a few more games I'd want.

@Droop said:

Is 400k for week 1 good or bad for a console launch? :s

Depends on the shipment, I guess.

They didn't sell out, so probably below common expectations.

No i did not buy one last week future man, it doesn't come out till Friday. I also did not buy zombiU and NSMBU, thank you very much.

Although i do have a pro pre-ordered, i guess.

I will probably buy the Wii U like I did the Wii.... years after it was released.

I just bought a Wii (not WiiU)

See ya in 5 years, Nintendo!

That would seem to jive with personal accounts from various Internet users, who have often reported seeing one or two consoles at most available at stores.

You could also look at ebay and see most of scalpers have lowered their prices to retail levels. Which is a great side-effect, because fuck those guys.

I bought a WiiU. I picked up ZombiU, NintendoLand (Black WiiU), and Mario. ZombiU is amazing... I've enjoyed it very much. Mario is ok, considering I didn't play the 3DS "New" Mario. In all, I'm enjoying the Wii U very much. The controller is very comfortable in my large hands. Excited to get some more games for it. I'm enjoying my Wii U much more then I ever enjoyed my Wii. My only complaint is that Nintendo didn't update the Wii-mote to be more like PS Move. I like the Move controllers alot better then the Wii-mote and nunchuck. Better button layout and the ball at the end lights up!

Part of me really wants a Wii U simply because it's a new console.. The other part is screaming at me to wait and see how it goes. The latter part is winning so far, just barely lol.

I bought a Wii U at launch, so far I'm really into it. Can't wait for some of the features like TVii to be released.

Since I built a proper gaming PC last year, (it's not as expensive, nor anything like as difficult, as you think. Everyone should try it. Even you. Yes, you.) the release of new consoles, which used to get me excited, is completely irrelevant. As far as power goes, I'm already two generations ahead of whatever the NEXT xbox or Playstation can do. I also have a far larger variety of games, and they all look better. Sure, there's always one or two games exclusive to the console I'd like to play (ZombieU in this case), but weigh that against the dozens or hundreds of games only a PC gamer has access to. Hell, there are entire genres of games that are exclusive to PCs.

In other words, what's a console, and why do people still care?

@thebigJ_A said:

Since I built a proper gaming PC last year, (it's not as expensive, nor anything like as difficult, as you think. Everyone should try it. Even you. Yes, you.) the release of new consoles, which used to get me excited, is completely irrelevant. As far as power goes, I'm already two generations ahead of whatever the NEXT xbox or Playstation can do. I also have a far larger variety of games, and they all look better. Sure, there's always one or two games exclusive to the console I'd like to play (ZombieU in this case), but weigh that against the dozens or hundreds of games only a PC gamer has access to. Hell, there are entire genres of games that are exclusive to PCs.

In other words, what's a console, and why do people still care?

Hehe yep pretty much what he said. Plus also games are cheaper.

I was able to get one at a Best Buy for the midnight Black Friday rush. I was probably the 70th person in the store, and they had restocked late Wednesday, so they had at least three Wii Us for each model.

I picked up a black one (Nintendoland) with Mario, ZombiU, and Scribblenauts. Oh, and a pro controller.

I wonder how many of those Wii sales didn't even know there was a new system out.

I wonder how many of those consoles were people buying them to put on ebay to try to get those 800$ bids that were happening on the Wii

aaaand how many will be returned since they're not selling for that much more then retail this time around

interesting stuff! Can't wait to see how it goes

@PompousDawson: What I also find interesting is the media's reaction to pc versions.

Pc version of hitman: 8.0

360 version of hitman: 8.0

Oh right, so "unnamed publication", you are being COMPLETELY unbiased and judging the game purely on the game.

Oh wait.

"The ps3 version 'of unnamed game' is substantially worse to play than the 360 version, due to a lower framerate on the ps3"

Hold on. Do I sense a double standard here? When pc versions are another game entirely, we get the same score When the console versions bicker of 5fps here or there, scores get shifted.

It kind of feels like major publications understand that the majority of the audience is console gamers, so actually scoring a game on the entire spectrum of it's merit - will anger them. Because let's face it, what you actually see (visuals) and how it plays (partially framerate) are big factors in games. Just like the audio, story, gameplay are big factors.

@Gladiator_Games said:

@Little_Socrates

I was able to get one at a Best Buy for the midnight Black Friday rush. I was probably the 70th person in the store, and they had restocked late Wednesday, so they had at least three Wii Us for each model.

I picked up a black one (Nintendoland) with Mario, ZombiU, and Scribblenauts. Oh, and a pro controller.

Im really trying to sort out what it says about the console when a normal controller for other consoles is called "pro" on the wiiu

hahaha

Well, honestly, both the gamepad and the pro controller feel pretty good, so the terminology doesn't turn me off that much.

@MildMolasses said:

@blacklab said:

Nintendo reports that it sold 300,000 original Wii units last week.

That is shocking

Except for the very real market confusion where people probably thought they were getting awesome black friday deals on the new Wii. I seem to remember Ryan retweeting something that one of the mods overheard about this very incident occurring

This. I'm pretty confident a bunch of people straight up bought the wrong thing. I mean, how are they to know how much the new Wii is supposed to cost? I'm sure some people decided this was the best time to cash in and grab an original Wii too, but there have definitely been reported cases of mistaken identity.

@whitespider: The problem with rating PC games is that unlike consoles where the performance is identical for owners of a particular console, the PC gamer's mileage will vary greatly. How do you rate that compared to console versions? Do you give it a 9.5/10 because it looks stunning and at a better clip for those who can run it or do you give it a 4/10 because it runs like ass at a certain threshold? It doesn't seem useful at all to rate a PC game on its performance when a reviewer's experience is completely inconsequential to any given customer's experience.

Now if you're going to rate a console game you can rate it based on certain expectations. A game should typically run at at least 30fps most of the time at something resembling 720p. If Hitman runs at minimum adequecy on one console but not the other and gives a more muddled experience and the experience is hampered then the score for that version should reflect that. If it's a juddery mess then the experience will be greatly hampered. And to be clear, the difference between 30fps and 25 fps average is a 17% decrease in performance assuming everything else is equal, which it just as likely is not. Often a bad version can also suffer from multiple other issues: resolution is lower, textures are murkier, screen tearing may appear, alpha effects halved or at much lower resolution, input latency is unbearable and the bottom will drop out on the framerate substantially more often.

With that said, I personally haven't read any of the other site's reviews for Hitman so if scores are different from console to console I don't know who or why the scores would have varied, but according to Digital Foundry the console versions are virtually identical from a performance standpoint. But in general if a game plays well on one and like a mess on the other the scores should reflect that.

@Y2Ken said:

@MildMolasses said:

@blacklab said:

Nintendo reports that it sold 300,000 original Wii units last week.

That is shocking

Except for the very real market confusion where people probably thought they were getting awesome black friday deals on the new Wii. I seem to remember Ryan retweeting something that one of the mods overheard about this very incident occurring

This. I'm pretty confident a bunch of people straight up bought the wrong thing. I mean, how are they to know how much the new Wii is supposed to cost? I'm sure some people decided this was the best time to cash in and grab an original Wii too, but there have definitely been reported cases of mistaken identity.

My roommate got one and had no idea that the new ones don't play GameCube games or use GCN controllers. Smash Bros. SUCKS HARDCORE without those controllers.

The Wii sold 475K over the same period in the US. The quoted 600K figure was for The Americas.

The only thing I like about it is being able to turn your console into a awesome hand held around the house, hope someone like NYKO or Madcatz makes one of these for the 360\PS3.

@Thoseposers said:

@GreatDane said:

Dreamcast sold 374k in the first week in the US......

Also, not getting a Wii U. Have a 360 and a wii I dont use..

after some quick googling it looks like the 360 sold even less at lauch

Very true, was quite suprised by these figures. Would be interesting how much the 720 sells at launch considering how fucking huge the player base has become on the 360. Decided to save that money for more games instead of a system I wouldn't play, still can't believe this didn't launch with a Wii sports or comes with a Wii Mote.

@Jensonb said:

The Wii sold 475K over the same period in the US. The quoted 600K figure was for The Americas.

this will be ignored for the usual nintendoom'd funtimes

It's interesting hearing Jeff talk about Nintendo how I used to start doing a few years ago. I think Jeff is a couple years younger than me so he's hitting that realization at a similar time.

Regardless I think Nintendo had a really strong launch. Plus there won't be any real competition till a year from now. Plenty of time for Nintendo to get some games on the console that wow people even more.

HEY GUYS! I JUST CHECKED 50 WALMARTS AND THEY ALL HAD ABOUT 20 WIIU'S IN STOCK EACH. NOW I USED THE HIGHLY INACCURATE ONLINE STOCK CHECKER AND DIDN'T ACTUALLY GO IN TO ANY OF THESE. I HAVE NO LIFE PLEASE KILL ME.

@VicRattlehead said:

@Jensonb said:

The Wii sold 475K over the same period in the US. The quoted 600K figure was for The Americas.

this will be ignored for the usual nintendoom'd funtimes

Why does it matter what the Wii's sales numbers were in comparison to anything? It sold out. The demand far exceeded supply for about a year.

Dreamcast comparison seems to make sense to me.

• New hardware,
• Slight upgrade from current consoles,
• Tepid 3rd party support,
• Disk format that is variation on industry standard,
• Likelihood of getting trampled by new more powerful consoles in a years time.

It X factor this time is also Online.

The scrubbed down internet community on the WII U, based on what I have seen so far, could be the killer app gaming has needed. Who else is tired of xbox live's constant abuse?

That could be what gets it into peoples homes like wii sports did for the wii.

Wii U's are sold out completely across southern New Hampshire. This Is more than likely because of New Hampshire lack of Sales Tax. go to Massachusetts or Connecticut and you could probably still find one.

@krelmoon said:

Dreamcast comparison seems to make sense to me.

• New hardware,
• Slight upgrade from current consoles,
• Tepid 3rd party support,
• Disk format that is variation on industry standard,
• Likelihood of getting trampled by new more powerful consoles in a years time.

It X factor this time is also Online.

The scrubbed down internet community on the WII U, based on what I have seen so far, could be the killer app gaming has needed. Who else is tired of xbox live's constant abuse?

That could be what gets it into peoples homes like wii sports did for the wii.

Wii U's are sold out completely across southern New Hampshire. This Is more than likely because of New Hampshire lack of Sales Tax. go to Massachusetts or Connecticut and you could probably still find one.

Not at all like the Dreamcast. At that point in time Sonic's name was no longer selling like it did in the Genesis days and they had come off multiple pieces of hardware being financial failures for them. For Sega the toilet was already flushed we were just waiting for the shit to go down.

@Little_Socrates: Thats good! I wondered how that would feel, the EB Games around me don't have any test stations up (they still have a PS2 test station at one of them), and every time I look at it I start to sweat, I shiver a bit, and feel very alone suddenly, and a voice whispers in my ear "sega game gear"

I was in Best Buy, Sears, and KMart  on Black Friday afternoon (buying a small HD tv) and the only place I did not see systems was Kmart.   
 
It does seem like the system didn't sell out, except in stores the got swamped.   I think if we are honest we can say there was less frenzy about this console.   Now, that doesn't mean it is not popular, or won't be popular, but lets all be clear about this was not a "sell out" except in local situations.

@Colourful_Hippie said:

@GreatDane said:

Dreamcast sold 374k in the first week in the US......

And the Dreamcast died, your point is?

Achievement Unlocked: I think you just put it together for yourself.

**New-Super-Mario-Bros-Round-of-Applause**

I grabbed one. Also, anecdotaly I work at a best buy and we sold our launch shipment day of. We got a second shipment the following day which we sold through that day too. The whole state has been sold out since then.

I live in Houston, TX. I called every wal mart, target and best buy in town and most of them did not have any Wii Us left on launch day. I'm talking EVERY single store that was listed on each of the retailers websites. A couple places said they had one white one left. I checked a few Gamestops too which were also sold out, in addition to lengthy wait lists. On the afternoon of the Tuesday following launch, I walked into a Best Buy on a whim and they had just unloaded a shipment of deluxes and basics, I'm gonna say about a dozen each. I picked up a deluxe, ZombiU and NSMBU.

The WiiU seems interesting, but it's launch is not strong enough for me to get one.

There are some interesting titles at launch. I think Zombi U is incredibly interesting. Scribblenauts Unlimited looks like fun, but I think that series works better on PC. Nintendoland seems good enough, but definitely not a reason to buy a console.

I'll wait till other games come out for it, and the price goes down.