I started looking into the availability of the Wii U and it seems there are plenty of them still around. Almost all walmarts in the greater Orlando area have them. What about in your area? Sold out? Some stock?
They are everywhere. My buddy just walked into a store and picked one up the other day. Just further shows that no one cares about the WiiU. The people who bought a Wii (or most rather) will probably keep playing the Wii for another 10 years. They're not the people who want new hardware all the time. They're the people who still have CRT TVs and dial up.
No where is sold out here. Just checked every gamestop in the area and they seemed happy to hear someone talking about it. Then again, the thing launched right before the travel heavy holiday in the US, so this means nothing of it's 2012 success.
Saw a couple of basic ones at the Best Buy here in Ft. Lauderdale which is crazy because of how densely populated the area is but then again people are mostly going for the deluxe versions.
@jdh5153: but they'll all be dead soon and then the wii u will shine!
seriously people who have dialup still are the worst (as i have to deal with them on occasion at my work. the most ancient slow people possible, and occasionally not too damn pleasant either.)
I just picked mine up at the local Best Buy, and there were several boxes just sitting around of both versions. I don't know, doesn't really feel like a proper game console release. If this is what Nintendo's launch is like, it makes me wonder how Microsoft's and Sony's new consoles will do.
I see a "decent" sized stock at various stores, where decent is one or two of each edition. Not surprised though cause Nintendo has stated that they're going to be refilling stores at a higher rate than they did with the Wii, they're also shipping out a whackload of units for Black Friday.
Im calling this console a failure if you can find a unit in stores after launch, all the casual gamers are now hooked into the iPhone\iPad ecosystem now, that didn't exist when Wii launched
@buttle826 said:
I just picked mine up at the local Best Buy, and there were several boxes just sitting around of both versions. I don't know, doesn't really feel like a proper game console release. If this is what Nintendo's launch is like, it makes me wonder how Microsoft's and Sony's new consoles will do.
They will sell gang busters, none of my gamer friends give a shit about Wii or Nintendo anymore, they release the same games over and over. Games have stepped up alot in this PS3\360 generation and the Wii just stayed behind. The majority of users on this site would probably get a new system around launch I would say or would love to have one, but I am just not getting any excitement about the Wii U coming from anywhere, outdated graphics on launch and a terrible online interface with no achievements is just living in the past from Nintendo. Plus if Modern Warfare 4 launches around the next Xbox release it would sell gang busters with that alone, the next xbox and PS3 will have the 3rd party developers doing some great stuff from launch. Again I think they are banking to much on the casual crowd adopting these like the Wii, but I just don''t see it happening again.
Im calling this console a failure if you can find a unit in stores after launch, all the casual gamers are now hooked into the iPhone\iPad ecosystem now, that didn't exist when Wii launched
I'm not expecting another Wii phenomena, like you said the smartphone/tablet market is what catches people best at the moment but this thing has a solid 3rd party support on top of Nintendo's fantastic IP bucket. Even if it falls down to Gamecube levels of public perception it'll probably still be fine.
Im calling this console a failure if you can find a unit in stores after launch, all the casual gamers are now hooked into the iPhone\iPad ecosystem now, that didn't exist when Wii launched
I'm not expecting another Wii phenomena, like you said the smartphone/tablet market is what catches people best at the moment but this thing has a solid 3rd party support on top of Nintendo's fantastic IP bucket. Even if it falls down to Gamecube levels of public perception it'll probably still be fine.
But it really doesn't, it has Zombi U which is averaging a 5.5 on Metacritic, Madden is pretty much the Wii version, AC3 won't sell much on Wii U I'm guessing. They will all move onto the next consoles withen a year. I think Nintendo had to be the first next gen system instead of bringing out a console with graphics we have had for 7 years. I can see a price drop coming soon like the 3DS which forced them to take a loss on every 3DS sold.
I've seen several stores with a decent number of Wii U in stock.
More concerning than that though is the fact that a lot of my non-gamer friends and family have little or no knowledge of the Wii U. Nintendo seems to have done a very poor job of communicating what Wii U is to the casual audience. There are a lot of misconceptions still out there about the fact that it actually is a new console, a lot of people have told me that they thought it was new controller for the Wii or a stand-alone portable system, and an even smaller portion of them knew it had already been released.
@Chaser324: Ever since that initial announcement, I knew the name was not a good choice. I understand the intent behind it, but I guess it's just not different enough. If the SNES was called the NES U or something, I think there would be a similar problem. SUPER Nintendo sounds like a totally better (and totally different) system. Nintendo should have came up with something better. Then there's the whole marketing strategy which is an entirely different story.
None of my family even knows its out, neither have most of my friends who are relatively casual gamers which surprises me. My mum for example is the biggest casual gamer i know, she is always on Facebook poker, or playing with the handheld games on 3DS (To my great surprise).
Its almost like nintendo are confused, trying to be too many things to too many people. System is too weak to appeal to the hardcore, and not pushed enough or unique enough to pique the interest of the casual. The Wii had a niche, and it executed it perfectly.
A - The name is terrible. Whoever gave the okay for that should be fired.
B - If you haven't noticed, Nintendo's trying to appeal to the core gaming audience again. They know that the Wii U won't have the same success as the Wii, because those people have moved on/don't need any other console.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
No Vita?
Oh I got one, no doubt. Still need a laserdisc player. And I'd love me an Atari Jaguar.
I've only seen white ones, but I've heard there are some black ones kicking around. Has anyone stopped to think that maybe Nintendo is doing a decent job of keeping up the supply this time around? The guy at my Wal-Mart told me they've gotten two shipments, not including the launch shipment, which seems to suggest they're simply keeping up with demand (which is certainly nowhere near the Wii demand) instead of letting the well run dry for weeks on end and trickling out a handful of consoles to stores at a time. Of course, it could also be an absolutely gigantic failure! WHO KNOWS!?
Also, does no one remember the PS3 launch? Those things were readily available pretty much everywhere. I'd walk into the Best Buy and trip over a stack of them.
I've only seen white ones, but I've heard there are some black ones kicking around. Has anyone stopped to think that maybe Nintendo is doing a decent job of keeping up the supply this time around? The guy at my Wal-Mart told me they've gotten two shipments, not including the launch shipment, which seems to suggest they're simply keeping up with demand (which is certainly nowhere near the Wii demand) instead of letting the well run dry for weeks on end and trickling out a handful of consoles to stores at a time. Of course, it could also be an absolutely gigantic failure! WHO KNOWS!?
Also, does no one remember the PS3 launch? Those things were readily available pretty much everywhere. I'd walk into the Best Buy and trip over a stack of them.
Did you ask him how sales are going at his store? Be interesting to see, some places are sold out some arent. When do the sales actually get announced anyone know?
The ps3 launch was a different beast though, it was priced way too high, had a very mediocre launch lineup and had the naivety of sony to go with that. The wiiu on the other hand...i dont know something seems off, like im not getting a good feeling at all about this launch, maybe its just me.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
No Vita?
Oh I got one, no doubt. Still need a laserdisc player. And I'd love me an Atari Jaguar.
I have this weird love hate relationship with Nintendo. I feel like they do so much insanely stupid shit, and yet they have these quirky ideas and games that are unlike anything else out there and it'd be really sad for them to fade away because of this console.
I've been critical of almost everything about this console, and now that it's out, I can see what they were going for. Maybe it's just because I've never owned a console at launch, but I actually kind of want one and all this availability news and such is just making me sad. Sad about games, and sad for Nintendo.
I despise all of you saying they're so easy to find. Shit's fucking GONE around here. I'm constantly refreshing all these sites just to see if they update and say "in stock". God damn it.
I think across the board it seems to be that going into a store and buying a WiiU seems to be fairly easy; but going into a store and buying a Black/Premium version seems to be problematic.
I'll be really interested to see how it goes in the UK. There's definitely been more advertising than in the US; purely from the perspective that GAME is going to be shouting about it and they have stores everywhere (and yes that still applies after the big job-loss; they were oversaturated then and now they still seem fairly common). But the other question is over the model of WiiU - due to it releasing here with 3 versions: Normal White; Premium Black (with Nintendoland - this is basically the same as the premium version in the US) but also with and Extra-Premium Black (which contains ZombiU instead of Nintendoland and also comes with a Pro Controller).
Im calling this console a failure if you can find a unit in stores after launch, all the casual gamers are now hooked into the iPhone\iPad ecosystem now, that didn't exist when Wii launched
@buttle826 said:
I just picked mine up at the local Best Buy, and there were several boxes just sitting around of both versions. I don't know, doesn't really feel like a proper game console release. If this is what Nintendo's launch is like, it makes me wonder how Microsoft's and Sony's new consoles will do.
They will sell gang busters, none of my gamer friends give a shit about Wii or Nintendo anymore, they release the same games over and over. Games have stepped up alot in this PS3\360 generation and the Wii just stayed behind. The majority of users on this site would probably get a new system around launch I would say or would love to have one, but I am just not getting any excitement about the Wii U coming from anywhere, outdated graphics on launch and a terrible online interface with no achievements is just living in the past from Nintendo. Plus if Modern Warfare 4 launches around the next Xbox release it would sell gang busters with that alone, the next xbox and PS3 will have the 3rd party developers doing some great stuff from launch. Again I think they are banking to much on the casual crowd adopting these like the Wii, but I just don''t see it happening again.
Casual gamers don't stand in line to get consoles at launch. They'll get them for the holidays this year, or maybe next, and that will be that.
I have a question. How many Wii U was produced for launch? I just get the feelingt hat Nintendo have manufactued more units this time and came well prepared. Yes, it's entirely possibe that it doesen't sell that well BUT at the same time. isn't it good that you actually can buy the darn thing if you want it? Do people really want to go through the Wii spectacle again with almost a year of shortages? That is NOT a good way to sell your system. I may build hype but what counts for customers is that the system is avalible. Is it really a measure of failure to say that you can't find a console? That is such a assbackwards way of looking at things.
When the next Xbox launches. Will it sell out? Mabey. But is it because of a low count of units or because it's stupid popular?
As I said. I'm very curious to know how many units Nintedo put on shelves.
To all of you saying Nintendo is doomed it's far too early to say that It could be a bad sign yes but it could also mean Nintendo was actually prepared this time in terms of stocking and unit availability.
On Topic though here in Arkansas at least where I live there isn't stock within 50 miles.
Man I picked mine up Wednesday and it was the only one left at GameStop. Everywhere else was sold out. I did here they sending out shipments for Black Friday but that sounds nuts how many there are. I gotta say though, I think the system is really cool. I could see some truly unique games on there.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
No Vita?
The Vita is hardly a failure...
But calling it anything else would just be dishonest hah. To be continually outsold by the last generation of your own product and your competitor's last-gen product is pretty messed up. I mean I like my Vita, but come on. That thing is tanking hard.
I see them out of stock online in BC, but they are available in retail locations.
I don't see Wii U as being a failure, but I don't see how it will sell as well as Wii did, either. Just a rough estimate, but I see them selling 3 million units over the holidays in NA market.
My interest in this thing would be tenfold if it was a massive failure. I'd buy one for sure, I love collecting weird fuck ups. I got a Betamax deck, a mini disc player, the HD-DVD drive, and of course saddest one of all, the Dreamcast.
I live near Detroit. Stock here is limited, but you can find them. I went to Target first, and they were sold out of both models. I tried Walmart right after, and was able to go back to electronics and grab one painlessly. There were two of each model in stock.
This was the first console launch in a long time where I didn't have to wait in line all night to get one. I hope it's because Nintendo is keeping up with demand, and not because people don't give a shit.
Seems there's a lot of basic ones around but i'm not sure about premium however i think the WiiU sold pretty good but Nintendo did a better job stocking stores than the Wii.
It is a very different landscape from the Wii launch in 2006 where dynamics have changed. I'm not sure the WiiU is a failure but it isn't going to sell as well just due to those changes.
I don't know if it's sales numbers or stock numbers but I just got back from a day of Christmas shopping and every store around here (Halifax, Nova Scotia) appeared fully stocked with both the basic and premium SKUs.
I'm not making any calls but it does feel kind of weird seeing shelves full of them with nobody even checking them out or thumbing through its games - and it's double weird that not a single person I know has even considered picking one up yet.
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