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NPD: Pachter Expects Wii U Hardware Sales To Fall 65 Percent Year-On-Year

Famed industry analyst Michael Pachter has told MCV that he believes that Wii U hardware sales will fall 65 per cent year-on-year. This means that Wii U US November sales are estimated at 149K by Pachter. The news comes ahead of the November NPD results which should indicate just how well the console has done against the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4. However, it should be noted that last November is when the system launched, so sales should be higher.

Pachter added that Wii U is expected to have suffered significantly as a result of the launches, with hardware sales falling 65 per cent year-on-year. Xbox 360 and PS3 sales are predicted to have fallen 44 per cent and 28 per cent respectively

159 thoughts on “NPD: Pachter Expects Wii U Hardware Sales To Fall 65 Percent Year-On-Year”

        1. anyone else experienceing probz with their 3ds and it playing online… or is the miiverse update causing this… (just double checking)

            1. Yep, we should be getting linked eShop accounts as well so you can use your funds amongst the 3DS and Wii U without having to buy a different eShop card for each!

    1. no he isn’t

      it’s not his job.. his job is to actually analyse the market.. most of the results you never get to read or hear about

      i believe many of his public comments he just makes to agitate people in order to boost his own popularity for better or worse

  1. The hater first said wiiu will stop selling once the next gen mid range PC’s came out it did not happened they moved the goal. Next year the goal will be moved again by haters.

  2. According to Pachter, for the month of November, US console sales ESTIMATES are: PS4 (Nov. 15): 1.25 mm, Xbox One (Nov. 22): 750k, Xbox 360: 700k, PS3: 550k, Wii U: 150k (ouch!), Wii: ?

    1. He’s full of himself as his prediction has been blown out of the water – for the US alone not including the rest of the world! In the last 2 weeks of November it sold almost 300K in the US. Why does anyone listen to him or post this BS?

    1. Same was said for Crysis 1, 2 and 3 but look some how they MAGICALLY made them work on the PS3 and 360. Graphic’s mean shit. They can down scale anything to make it fit if they need to.

      Pull your head out of your ass and use your brain next time. The graphic’s card is getting old. First it was the Wii U has no games. Now that it does have games and the PS4 does not. Now its Wii U can’t handle the next gen games. When are people like you going to go back to enjoying games and not enjoying specs?

      1. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH hey Metroidvania what do you smoke Wii U not have PS4 game even to have AC4 looks much better on PS4 and XONE than current gen and your Wii U Watch Dogs too look much better on PS4 and XONE than current gen and your Wii U you Nintendo fanboys Pull your heads out of your asses

        1. Looks this looks that, how about the horrible knack gameplay, brokenfield 4 bugs and very very weak remakes of a game that was released this year?

          1. Your fail hate name tried too hard and crashes head on hard. lol Enjoy your headache when you wake up in hell once that happens to you.

      1. Wii U can easily handle 4k-8k textures as that is what Shin’en are doing with their newest Racer for 2014. Never underestimate Nintendo’s hardware.

        1. Well put it this way, 4K is HD x4 and 8x is 4x 4K.

          More pixels so you’ll get a clearer and sharper image – doesn’t make a game look any better though.

        2. well 4K in regard to textures just means that the texture itself has a size of 4K (roughly 3800*2100)
          that doesn’t have to mean anything however because it all depends on how big the texture ends up being on screen

          if you use a single 4K texture to paint one big room it will still not look good on a 1080p screen

          1. You’re all wrong, 4K textures means tiles that are 4096×4096, 8K means 8192×8192.

            It has nothing to do with screen size. What they are talking about is pixel density and how much total textures you can cram on the screen at higher pixel density. If you have a sphere with a fully used textured surface at 4K that takes up the whole screen, you still only see half of that resolution minus the actual resolution of your monitor which is 1920×1080. so it only matters if you build your content right and for the player you’re gaming on a PC with a high resolution monitor/PC, or their giant textures get really close to the camera of the game.

            M

            1. To put it another way, if your pixel density on the screen is higher than what the console/tv can output based on distance of surfaces to the game camera, it is a waste of texture size. So most so called AAA games have giant textures everywhere which bloats any system really quickly when you add fancy engine+fx stuff. While cartoony games Mario dont need those so they have a lot more head room to play with in terms of resources. Thats why you hear these observations that games like AC4 runs smoother on 360 vs a wii-u, because most of their textures on last gen are at 1/4th the size, ie: 1024×1024 is 1/4th of 2048×2048.

              M

            2. that is exactly what i said.. having 4K textures doesn’t mean anything if they’re not used right, what matters is the both the size of the body they’re mapped to and the distance to the camera

              i used the wrong texture size but that’s about it

      2. unfortunately rendering a game szene isn’t just about textures.. not even close

        fortunately though modern game engines are highly scalable so if ubisoft puts even a hint of effort into it this game would most likely work on the wii u with some visual trade offs

    2. The only thing wiiu can’t do is run that at 1080p and 60 frames and maybe not the stupid things that you need to freeze the frame to see.

      1. And you’re basing this on what evidence exactly?

        This is why developers need to learn the hardware. It’s no good in saying it will not run, if a bit of effort is put in……

          1. Oh quite easily. If programmed correctly for then it won’t be a problem. CryEngine 3 is the most demanding engine that I know of, and Crytek said that getting it to work for Wii U was easy. Never estimate the power of a PowerPC CPU. Especially when it’s over clocked, tripled and then eDRAM for cache – you’re looking at something that’s quite a power house. When Wii had Galaxy, its’ hard to believe that a 729Mhz PowerPC was running all that at once and a 243MHz GPU. I thought Galaxy would have issues, but turns out it’s CPU was more than capable.

            That’s when I learned it’s about what the CPU is able to do, not the clock speed.

            1. crytek never mentioned with what visual tradeoffs however

              furthermore they said they only ran it at 720p

              and further still that was an unconfirmed rumor

              thinking the wii u would be capable of the same graphic fidelity as, say, the PS4 is delusional, nothing less

              1. It’s like you’re comparing PS4 hardware to Wii U hardware. You cannot really do that. If you develop for each console you have to change the way you code. x86 and PowerPC are very different, therefore engine layouts are going to be different.

                I believe if Wii U can deliver 4K textures, then everyone has mistaken Wii U. Even I didn’t think it would be capable of that and I’m learning hardware architecture.

                1. Remember what Manfred Linzner of Shin’en said. You can’t just program with the GPGPU and CPU alone, you’ve got to literally use all the hardware together to get max power out of the console, otherwise the games will just lag and will spend a long time loading (even the Espresso is OoO). The eDRAM and caches must be used otherwise you encounter problems – same thing will happen with PS4 and X1 I reckon. Same set ups, just different CPUs – all 3 use AMD HD Radeon GPGPUs.

                  1. even the smartest programming cannot replace a lack in processing power
                    i’m sure the wii u will be capable of some very nice visuals but it will never be comparable to what the PS4 will be able to do

                  2. lol@trying to justify wiiu hardware vs ps4/xb…just lol

                    wiiu is too far behind on everything, ram,cpu and gpu…gpu for example is comparable to a 6-7 year old radeon card..dafuq?? nintendo’s own games aren’t even 1080p and your talking 4k LMFAO.

                    i love wiiu but this just goes too far

                    1. please just shut up

                      you’re not any better than him only in the other extreme
                      6-7 year old GPU.. absolute bullshit

                2. 4K textures are mostly a matter of memory space.. the wii U has enough of that if used deliberately
                  rendering a scene however is mostly down to raw processing power and the wii U simply doesn’t compare to the PS4 in that regard

                  1. what are you even saying? learn english and get facts straight..stop acting high and mighty and maybe stfu yourself

                    2007 R600
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                    2008 R700
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                    V |
                    2009 Evergreen |
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                    V |
                    2010 Northern Islands |
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                    V |
                    2011 Southern Islands |
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                    2012 | Nintendo GPU7
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                    V
                    2013 Sea Islands

                    compiled info from amd support..but hey they probably dont know shit either…lmfao..just stop lol

                    1. 2007 R600
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                      V
                      2008 R700
                      |————————Nintendo GPU7
                      V |
                      2009 Evergreen |
                      | |
                      V |
                      2010 Northern Islands |
                      | |
                      V |
                      2011 Southern Islands |
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                      | V
                      2012 |
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                      2013 Sea Islands

                    2. first post format fkd up..just so you wont post any more dumb shit
                      between 2008-2009 so lets say 5 yrs? kthxbai

                    3. the AMD GPU is manufactured in 40nm and GPGPU capable

                      neither was available before 2009
                      how about you get your facts straight? that’s all i have to say about that

    3. I once thought things would be different this generation for Nintendo, because the big processing powerhouses, Sony and Microsoft, couldn’t make as big of a jump as the jump from PS2 to PS3, or Xbox to Xbox 360. I’m starting to think I was wrong. Perhaps the gap is still just a little too wide for devs to easily make the same game for both PS4 and Wii U, and the gap may only get wider as the generation progresses.

  3. Nintendo can die this gen and still no company will come close to their quality, high standards and care for consumers. Wiiu may flop hard but that will be only on sales but it will have the greatest games ever and they will be better than the others.

  4. I hate to say it, but he is probably somewhat right. I don’t know about 65%…that’s a little high but I do believe his overall point being that sales for the Wii U will decline with each year is true. Isn’t that kind of obvious though?

    1. he never said it would decline every year

      year on year means that it will decline for this month as compared to last years sales (which was the launch month of the wii u)

      1. Pre-order / launch sales are included in the first year’s november sales, so I wouldn’t be suprised at all if he (for once) was right.

  5. I just got around in beating Super Mario 3d World and i gotta say, beating bowser in world has to be the most disappointed final bowser fight in any mario game, *SPOILERS* while the idea was interesting him using a cat suit power up was awesome, i was disappointed when you didnt get to fight him head on but instead you had to like some tower and THAT’S IT!!!! This game is good but i would say its a solid 9 its not as perfect as the Galaxy Series but i had fun :)

    1. Beating Bowser means you’re maybe 70% done with the game, now you’ve got a 5th character and 4 special worlds to go. Hope you were picking up lots of green stars.

      1. yeah i have not start with the special world cant wait to get into it but dang those last few stages before bowser be hard though..

          1. lol You’re kidding? That big mouthed retard crystal ball wannabe..a human being? That thing is only good for two things: Calling shit and blow jobs.

  6. Patcher thinks everything but so far the Wii U is destroying the Xbox 720p, the same console Patcher said would doom the Wii U….

      1. That’s only launch hype sales. It’ll drastically slow down since there’s reports of Xbetamax catching fire, disc drive issues and now NSA spying. For $500, its not gonna do well for long especially for Christmas. Besides, it only sold a million because of its multiple release locations and compare to PS4 which sold more in less time and places, PS4 pretty much whooped its ass without or hardly any proper launch games. All Wii U needs is better games to showcase its potential and Nintendo to stop holding back and actually advertise the damn thing better.

  7. Funny, ’cause of course the Wii U will sell less than last year since it was its debut. But what if next year Zelda Wii U comes out and sales increase from this year? What an idiot, and don’t we already know November sales of this year? Did they fall 60% that he is saying it will fall 60% each year? He already knows how much it felt ’cause he read how it sold on November, but I think it sold more than 100k. Anyway, this guy is a troll.

    1. I believe Wii U will increase each year. Because there is a lot of potential they showed at 2011 that ain’t here yet. Plus the games. I’m sure they are working in Pikmin 4. Also pikmin 3 no Mission stages are to die for. It is THIS close to Pikmin 2’s underground tunnels. I love that game. Advertise that on TV. I hope Pikmin 4 they get rid if Rock Pikmin bring back purple Pikmin and bring back the underground tunnels. And add more enemies. There wasn’t enough of them.

    1. I hope pikmin 4 is as good as Pikmin 2. Pikmin franchise is my favorite from Nintendo. I hope they reveal another Pikmin between 2014-16.

  8. That doesn’t make any sense… It would make more sense for the sales to increase on a yearly basis because more and more games are being released… Once games stop being published on the platform, then it makes sense for sales to decline… Retard…

    1. Smash bros is going to be epic. I just know it.Its nno telling how it will be. I get to play on my Wii U off or on TV. Or 3DS with Captain Olimar!!

        1. You might be right. I’m worried about the next SSB. Sakurai’s only been working on the project since he finished Kid Icarus: Uprising in 2012, and the Wii U needs big name games NOW. As much as I’d love to have a new SSB in my hands any day, 2014 feels very premature. I want this to be the best SSB it can be, which is why I actually hope it’s delayed this time, but with the way the Wii U is faring, I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up.

    1. seriously, there have been several articles that are positive about Nintendo and the Wii U recently and all he does is post negative. He’s a troll. But he gets his clicks. Not sure why a Nintendo site would employ him but whatever, it gives us defenders a forum to defend I guess

      1. That Xbot God stole the Apple Core System back in the Dawn of time and as a result created the PC Master Race who became slaves under his command and the Slave Race gave birth to the Xbots…

  9. This guy really a total nut job. And people are saying Iwata needs to be fired. What a joke this man is. He knows nothing of the games industry. Hell Nintendo were the ones who got it to where it is today, and HE is still saying the same sh1t?!?! Some odd analyst he is.

    On another note, as AAA titles are out next year, this theory will be turned upside down the moment a game like Tropical Freeze gets released.

    He is a pure Nintendo hater and he has nothing to back up his claims. I wonder how much MS paid him to say this. Sony would have nothing to do as they want Wii U to go on – so in that respect I would like to see PS4 go on and do really well.

  10. I’d like to see him fired first…

    And when he is dying on his bed, a letter containing total confirmed Nintendomination will be his grand revelation of total failure…

    1. Satoru has no reason to be fired to be honest. He knows what he’s doing. All he has to do is fix the Wii U advertisement. Which might I add I am still enjoying playing.

      I thought about it yesterday and realised that Wii U actually has the biggest library if you consider Wii games also work on the system. Backwards gameplay is pure genius. I am glad I went with it over PS4 and X1.

      1. Backwards compatibility is also really easy to add in! If XBox One had backwards compatibility, I’d honestly consider it, where it another 200-300 $ cheaper. Plus, people who have Wiis can sell theirs to have enough dough to buy a Wii U because they can still play their favourite games.

  11. hey pacthole. is that a fact? nope, its your opinion that falls on deaf ears, including those who are and that also know your a piece-o-shit journalist that rarely say anything positive about nintendo

  12. omfg sickr, just stop. I really don’t care about Pacter’s hate at this point, and I don’t think anyome eose does either.o

  13. I think we’ve already established that Patcher knows nothing about video games, marketing or Nintendo. Can you shut him up, or at least stop posting his retarded opinion? Wii U has been outselling the PS4, it’s cheaper and everybody who couldn’t afford it at launch, can finally afford it, if anything it’ll rise, maybe not 65% but at least 25%.

  14. Nintendo needs to pack pro controller and Wiimote and Nunchuck in box with Wii U and Gamepad and a game. Nintendo needs something good to save the Wii U and it needs it now.

  15. pachter predictions, he actually predicted more sales for the wii U in the past. (note im not defending the guy of anything i just think its kinda funny the reaction of you guys)

    November 2012:
    450K prediction -> 425K reality
    25K over-predicted (-5.55%)

    December 2012:
    675K prediction -> 463K reality
    212K over-predicted (-31.41%)

    January 2013:
    125K prediction -> 57K reality
    68K over-predicted (-54.40%)

    February 2013:
    80K prediction -> 66K reality
    14K over-predicted (-17.50%)

    March 2013:
    55K prediction -> 68K reality
    13K under-predicted (23.63%)

    April 2013:
    55K prediction -> 37K reality
    18K over-predicted (-32.72%)

    May 2013:
    32K prediction -> 33K reality
    1K under-predicted (3.13%)

    June 2013:
    38K prediction -> 42K reality
    4K under-predicted (10.53%)

    July 2013:
    30K prediction -> 29K reality
    1K over-predicted (-3.33%)

    August 2013:
    30K prediction -> 31K reality
    1K under-predicted (3.33%)

    September 2013:
    55K prediction -> 95K reality
    40K under-predicted (72.72%)

    October 2013:
    75K prediction -> 50K reality
    25K over-predicted (-33.33%)

    November 2013:
    150K prediction

  16. According VGChartz WiiU sold 198K in America just in one week (november 24-november 30). Is Patcher patched or VGChartz is wrong?!?!?

  17. Just desire to say your article is as amazing. The clearness in your post is simply great and i could assume you’re an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission let me to grab your feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please continue the rewarding work.

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