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Nintendo Lowers Wii U Sales Forecast From Nine Million To 2.8 Million

Nintendo today revealed that it has once again lowered its Wii U sales forecast. The firm previously expected to sell nine million Wii U consoles worldwide by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, but that figure has been reduced to 2.8 million, which is even lower than a recent prediction made by research analyst David Gibson. The company has also slashed its Nintendo 3DS sales forecast to 13.5 million units from 18 million.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said: “Revised consolidated unit sales projections are 13.5 million units of the Nintendo 3DS hardware and 66.0 million units of the Nintendo 3DS software, 1.2 million units of the Wii hardware and 26.0 million units of the Wii software, and 2.8 million units of the Wii U hardware and 19.0 million units of the Wii U software. There are no modifications to our initial projections for the Nintendo DS hardware and software.”

133 thoughts on “Nintendo Lowers Wii U Sales Forecast From Nine Million To 2.8 Million”

      1. What did I tell ye? I got lambasted before these results came out. This is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. I want Nintendo to succeed but they are badly run these days and changes have to be made. I don’t know how they get out of this hole and Nintendo don’t either. Continue with Wii U and lose 100’s of millions of dollars each year, won’t sell many consoles, no 3rd party support, this gen will last 5-6 years at least, retailers won’t stock this console soon enough. Or ditch the Wii U and run the risk of turning into Sega.

    1. Misleading. It never said it expected to sell 9 million WiiU on 2014, but until 2014, they´re already sold 5,5 million, plus those 2,8 million it would be 8,3 millions

      1. Blog is a bit misleading.
        It should be “…by the end of its 2013 fiscal year,..”
        or “…by the end of its fiscal year ending March 2014,..”

        rather than
        “The firm previously expected to sell nine million Wii U consoles worldwide by the end of its 2014 fiscal year,..”

        1. Nintendo sold 3.45m FY 2012.
          Nintendo forecasted 9mil is only for FY 2013, but sold ~2million so far (Q1-Q3). So, they only need about 0.8m in Q4 (Jan-Mar) to reach their new 2.8m FY 2013 forecast.
          So, 3.45m (FY’12) + 2.8m (FY’13) = 6.25m (LTD), not 8.3m.

          1. ok thnxs u for simplifying that mister :D i was to try umderstanding but had relly hard time :( but thank to u i know get it :) so i thinks 9 million was abit over the top to begun wit.but that just me..will if u excuse i had to prepare for to school ^_^b

      2. Nintendo have just dropped it Wii U sales prediction from 38 Million to ONLY 19 Million!!!
        The fact that they have HALVED the total sales just proves how much Nintendo have already given up on the Wii U.
        19 Million is even worse than the Gamecube!!
        PRICELESS!!

        1. Not to mention less software sales even when factoring in the digital sales which the GameCube lacked (pathetic), lack of third party support and have yet to release Smash Brothers. But according to fanboys that’s part of its charm.

      1. It is true, they did a similar forecast change when the 3DS was failing, followed by a massive price cut and a surge of games. Nintendo isn’t going to give up on the Wii U. I expect the console to drop to $219 or even $199 when either Donkey Kong or Mario Kart is released. Wouldn’t surprise me to see a newer model at the end of the year either.

  1. High Command should start to be worried about the Home Console Area…

    If this trend continues, they might lose a significant part of the new army that we need during the next war…

      1. Yes but this current generation of potential young recruits are severely impatient compared to my generation…

        They have the attention span of a baboon…

      2. If they ever get around releasing Smash Bros.. I think they’ll pull the plug before that.
        Mario Kart is not gonna move units, neither is Smash Bros – it’s for Nintendo fans, and they’re pretty much the 2,8 million who allready have the console.

          1. Fiscal year(apr2013-mar2014), Not Lifetime sales.
            so 2.8m forecast + 3.45m from last fiscal year = around 6.25m is the total Nintendo hope by the end of March 2014.

              1. My bad. But then just change that number to 5 million. It won’t make a difference, Mario Kart and Smash Bros won’t move any units

        1. Do you think that,or do you hope it? Cause if you know Nintendo good, you know that they never gonna plug anything out the only thing they gonna plug out is the power when they finish playing a game. ……

          The wiiu need games to move, nothing wrong with the wiiu, there is something wrong with people like you, who telling others ferry tails. …….

          1. I think there is a lot wrong with the Wii U as a system, as well as Nintendo’s politics and ignorance.
            If they had released Wii U maybe in 2009 or 2010, it would have been a huge success and maybe even considered a classic, but the Wii U came into the market way too late. When the Wii U entered the market in 2012, most people just considered it a bad tablet with a Wii. There was no real innovation, since everyone owns a tablet, and competing companies like Sony and Microsoft, quickly showed us “you don’t need a Wii U, you can do the same shit with your iPhone., tablet or ps vita!”. Though, I personally love the idea of off-TV play, I can see why it would turn off a lot of people, because there is really no need for it . Most people have more than one TV, and most people don’t share their TVs. The asymmetrical gameplay functions seem neat, but have very few games to represent them. Hell, even Super Mario 3D World ditched it for the most part. As a matter of fact, the only first party title I can think of that’s utilizing this, is Wii U Party and Warioware. And that’s some pretty bad titles.
            No one can defend the Wii U strongly. There is not really a case to build. I love Nintendo, I love the Wii U, but from a commercial view, it’s a big mistake, and they should pull the plug so they won’t end up like Sega.

            1. Nothing is wrong with the Wii U. they made the tablet a controller because it was something that was familier with the consumers. it works technically. Besides. it is so much better then Kinect 2 with the XBox One. it works, it isint gimmicky as it looks and it is comfortable. People just need to shut up and try out the system with AAA games to see it has potential. besides. Games like the Last of Us, L.A Noire, Beyond Two Souls and Grand Theft Auto V show that people can still do amazing things with past hardware. so the wii U can still compete with quality over quantity. Gamers just need to shut up and play.

              1. If everyone just “shutted up”, don’t you think Nintendo would have driven Wii U to its death? I think it’s great that people have an opinion, and are concerned about a company. That’s rare, but it often happens in the gaming world. And yeah sure, Kinect 2.0 is unessecary, but the hardware for both system is still so much more powerful, and more importantly: they have games that appeal to everyone – unlike Nintendo. Nintendo is niche, and the whole system has become, kinda like psvita, a niche system with niche games that only appeals to a certain crowd. Mario, Zelda and Samus have run their momentum, and both fans of Nintendo as well Nintendo is starting to realize that. The games are still great, better than ever actually, but that clearly isn’t enough. Gamers and people in general, want TV and movie integration, social integration, online multiplayer, tons of sales on downloadable games, incredible graphics, twitch etc. – and Nintendo can deliver none of the above. Sure, they make great games but their whole mantra about the gaming industry as a whole, is years behind, and that’s what killing. “We don’t believe people wants fancy graphics and machines, they want fun games”, “With HD graphics we can actually make crystal clear pipes in Super Mario, which was something we could never do before” to “People don’t want online multiplayer, they want to sit on their couches and play together”.

      1. He should be fired because he messed up once with the Wii U? Isn’t he the one who came out with the Wii which was only one of the most successful home consoles of all time? 💋

      1. I know but they also promised that the Wii U would not be a repeat of the 3DS failure launch…

        Which it was…

        What concerns me is their lack of aggressive negotiations so to speak…

  2. 2,8 mio – that’s really low! if these numbers stay, wii u will only sell around 15 mio in 5 years and therefor could be nintendo least sucessful home console ever! :(

    1. Depends on what you mean with “successful”. Because for most Nintendo fans, the GCN was a lot more successful than the Wii, while only selling 1/5th of Nintendo’s most “successful” console. The Wii U is starting to look a lot like the GCN, with mostly fans buying it, and getting some more hardcore games.

      + I now know 5 people/families other than me that have all invested in a Wii U. It’s not dead, but if it sells 20 million+, it’s not /really/ bad.

  3. Wow, that’s really low. I wouldn’t say 2.8 mil at all honestly. Amazing games are coming out this year. DK, Smash Bros, Mario Kart are going to be the biggest titles for Nintendo this year. I’m sure they’ll make more than 2.8 mil. Smash bros for the wii u for the holidays? Shall be amazing. And yea some of you will say that a lot of people will just buy it for the 3ds but, honestly, and I doubt it. For me, I need a good grip when it comes to that game. The GameCube controller was amazing. I played Ultimate Jump stars (I think it was called) and it didn’t feel right for me. Yea, different fighting styles and game play but I just don’t see myself using the 3ds’ control pad to play that game. I just think there’s a high possibility that it’s not going to benefit me at all in the long run.

    1. ^This comment is why this blog post is misleading. Nintendo said 2.8m for the Fical Year ending March 2014, not “2014 fiscal year”. That’s a whole year difference, the author (ALBA) made a mistake.

  4. google+verison proposal legion we will succeed!

    dayuum! that’s like an old, balding fat man with a list of illnesses and crabs looking to date a young, blonde, rich, mute and horny girl then lower his expectation to fat, black and proud of it standards after continuous failure.

  5. To be honest, I predict about 5 million units each year…

    That would make the Wii U total sales of about 30 million which is not that bad…

    1. It’s bad compared to Xbox and Ps4. It’s also bad compared to the GameCube or even the vita. So yeah it’s pretty bad, and they’ll be selling Wii Us at a huge loss if they don’t find a way to win Bak the hardcore gamers and casual gamers, or simply cut off the Wii U and start focusing solely on handhelds.

      1. Well if things don’t look better after the releases of Mario Kart 8, Smash Brothers and Zelda U then they should pull the plug…

        1. Sounds like suicide to me because right now majority of those who buy wii u are probably Nintendo hardcore gamers. By pissing them off you think they will continue wholeheartedly supporting whatever next new home console?

          1. Well…

            If it did come to that, these loyal servants…I mean loyal fans must be compensated in some way…

      2. Nope. Xbox One wont sell well outside of the USA and UK. Only way Xbox One sells a lot is if a RROD happens again and makes everyone buy 3 of the damn systems. Cause Xbox 360 sales, 2/3 of them are from people having to rebuy them.

        1. Xbox One has only launching in a few markets, yet it has outsold the Wii U and is doing great. What are you basing you statement on?
          And you know, RROD was a problem with the very first model of xbox360, ever since it’s been selling like hot cakes – and still is! It’s an appealing cheap console that both families, kids and hardcore gamers can enjoy, and it’s been packed in dirt cheap bundles for the past two years. I am pretty damn sure that people are buying these, because it is a fantastic gaming machine. Same goes for Xbox One – it’s doing great.

    1. They should have made SM3DW a launch title instead of the rehashed NSMBU…

      By now the Wii U total sales worldwide would probably be the double amount…

      1. Yep, they absolutely should have done that. They’ve been late on everything, and now it’s biting them in the butt.

  6. It’s all Nintendo’s fault. I was at Wal-Mart yesterday, and I noticed that they already have an Xbox One AND a Playstation 4 demo unit (kiosk) set up. Yet, there’s STILL no Wii U kiosk. I have never even seen a Wii U game in person because Nintendo has no kiosks in stores. Even 200+ miles from where I live, I have not seen any Wii U kiosks. What gives? Why has Nintendo been SO lazy with their Wii U marketing?

    1. They are smart. Marketing costs money. There is no demand for WiiU anymore and they have seen it very well with Mario 3D world and other games. When there comes software that will get people hyped, then advertisements will launch. Now it’s better to save money for them lol

    2. They don’t like to have kiosks because the gamepad’s plastic screen is easily damaged by abuse. Consumers seeing that as their first experience of the console would not drive sales.

    3. My small country’s capitol city’s general supermarket has a Wii U stand, saw a little girl playing Sonic Lost Worlds.

    4. That’s strange. Here were I live, there are Wii U kiosks everywhere. Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy.. I see them a lot, and there’s usually someone playing on them too.

  7. america going doomed we have a communist president meanwhile im more worried about a cheap weak ugly plastic upgrade garbage for kids with leappad accesory cus i never grew out of my diaper wearing fetish and have to defend the my entire life's meaning

    i thought wii already sold 4.5 million????????????????????????????please someone tell me nintendos going to be ok..please! i really need that comfort please!!

  8. …. Hasn’t it already sold over 4 million though?

    Either way, the whole sales talk about WiiU can’t be talked about with genuine opinions, because people still have ridiculous ideas of how many units it’s actually going to sell, including Nintendo.

    I’ve been saying from the start, 30 million, maybe 40, worldwide in 8 years.
    Not because i think the WiiU is “bad”, it’s actually a legitmate guess, because 1. Nintendo aren’t that popular, 2. It won’t outsell the 3DS because there are more handheld gamers especially because of 3. Nintendo handhelds have ALWAYS done well, so they don’t have a “bad reputation”, everyone knows they’ve always been awesome and sold really well. If PS2 sold like shit, PS3 would’ve bombed in comparison, but it didn’t.

    But WiiU doesn’t need 80-90 or 100 million unit sales, because that’s fucking stupid.
    Sure, you get a decent profit from consoles, but most profit comes from software. And out of the 80-90-100 million owners of 360, PS3 and Wii’s, only like 10-20 million people actualy buy stuff, and less probably buy GOOD stuff. And even then, people don’t buy stuff, so my predicted number is probably even LESS.
    Even with the WiiU, lets say 4 million units. So why do games like Wonderful 101 and Pikmin 3 have low sales? Why are you BUYING good games for your console? And this is just from 4 million units. Fuck, Bayonetta 2 will probably sell 90,000. Why?! Are you all stupid?

    And sure, people have “tastes” in games, which i don’t give a fuck about, get a grip, enjoy things, and yeah some are kids and that’s understandable, but fuck…come on.

    So who gives a fuck if it sells less than 30 million. Oh another 60-70 million fucking morons who don’t buy anything good bought your system, sure be proud /s. Wii was apparently “full of casuals”, fucking every system is.

      1. Well thats still stupid, they 4-5 million in a year with only 4 games on it, now they actually have stuff coming out

        1. “Nintendo handhelds have ALWAYS done well.” You can argue all you want on how bulky the VB was, but it was still created to be a handheld.

          1. Not really.
            The gameboy/DS model has always sold well, and they’ve all carried traits over from each other.

            VB is the basically the same as those other weird 80’s/early 90’s weird shit Nintendo brought out.

            On top of that, the VB was released before the Gameboy Colour and the N64 even came out, so Nintendo never really had a handheld line, or a history of console, just NES, SNES and Gameboy.

            1. Just because the VB failed doesn’t mean it wasn’t part of the Nintendo handheld line or “non-canon”. And they made a great name for themselves in that department with the Gameboy’s success.

              1. Yeah but nobody regards it as part of “Nintendo’s handheld line up”.

                Same way nobody counts the PSX in the Playstation line up, which isn’t a weird name for the original PS1, it’s some odd PS2 with a DVR thing in it, that failed. Yet nobody says “well, PSX failed so i guess we should reconsider the companies success”.

                1. It’s not about what people “consider” it to be or not, the fact is otherwise & that argument’s irrelevant. Hell, if it were up to most of these random PPL (which I speculate to also be Obama voters), the 3DS would be classified as part of the DS family.

  9. it’s 6 million units total till March 2014.
    More interesting is April 2014 – March 2015
    These figures were all well known, but off course they take a loss

  10. Well it’s all over. They expect to sell less than dreamcast. ( Dreamcast sold 10+ million in 2 years). So here it goes fanboys. Reggie said there won’t be software draught. But it’s obvious that from those games that were announced to be released in 2014, it will be the entire library for WiiU, since there is no third party after Watch Dogs. Probably some of the games for 2014 will even be pushed to 2015.
    The console will probably be discontinued in 2016

  11. If Smash Bros, Mario Kart 8, and Monolith Soft’s X don’t do the job, then it might be time to pull the plug.

    Zelda will be unveiled at E3, but I imagine that won’t come until 2015, and who knows if the Wii U will last that long.

    Quite a shame, but I guess Nintendo had it coming. That’s what you get when you claim that you learned from the 3DS’ bad start but then give the Wii U an even worse start. As much as I love Nintendo (and always will support them), they’re idiots if they thought that another NSMB rehash and Nintendo Land made the Wii U line up better than the 3DS.

    Apparently, the days of having Smash Bros, Pikmin, Luigi’s Mansion, and Star Wars at the beginning are long gone (aka GCN).

  12. do y’all think that intend would have this problem if they had came up with an entirely different name for Wii U?

    To this day I believe most of the problem comes from product differentiation. They have a situation where this and the last console damn near have the same name and the WiiU honestly If I was a parent looking for a new console for my kid, I’d see WiiU and think “oh… They updated the body style, like PS3 did with “fatboy” and made it “slim”… No need to buy the same console again I’ll just wait till the nice looking controller is available separately and just buy that for the Wii I already have… In the meanwhile Sony has a new PlayStation?? Ok all knowing Gamestop guy… Which games should I get for this easily discernable new PlayStation system?”

    Nintendo has painted themselves into a alphanumeric corner… These nine million potential buyers that they just backed away from and dropped to 2 million don’t know that the Wii U is a entirely new console, they think its just an aesthetic update… And it’s unfortunate for Nintendo

  13. Its funny how the fanboys are suddenly realizing how much of a fail the wii u is. Even nintendo has no faith in wii u, even when they have all their big hitters in 2014.

    1. Just because the Wii U doesn’t sell as much as we all want, doesn’t mean it’s a failed machine…

      I can’t wait to buy it and a lot of games that are already out and will come out…

      I don’t care if I would be the only one who bought a Nintendo console in the end, it’s all about the games I love…

      1. You do realize that this isnt going to be another gamecube in quality. wii u is going to bomb is sales and not get that 3rd party like the gamecube, it aslo wont get all those other nintendo franchises like gamecube did. For nintendo to be successful they need to get rid of iwata and even reggie, because with them we will never get another great system like gamecube. gamecube flopped in sales but it was actually a winner, the wii u will be neither.

  14. it means they expect to sell 2.8 between january to april not bad considering they only have donkey kong to carry it until then

    1. If they are at 5 million now that would put them pretty close to the 9 million the forecast originally then wouldn’t it?

      Also, why would they be slashing forecasts for the 3DS at all when the console is selling like crazy? I mean, what expectations did they have for it? Must have been pretty unrealistic.

  15. The Virtual Boy was Nintendo’s first try at a home/handheld console. Maybe now that they have the tech and the experience, they can perfect this concept next gen. Just make the architecture easier for developers to understand next time. -B2

    1. The architecture for the Wii U is easy to understand for people that chose to understand it. The thing is that lazy developers or people that are not on the ball as far as their programming knowledge and have gotten by using dev kits where the CPU does the majority of the work have issues. Developers have already come out to say that developing on the Wii U is no more difficult than developing for the XBOX 360.

      Part of the blame also goes to publishers for not giving developers time to get accustomed to working with hardware in which the GPGPU does the majority of the work. Even that one “anonymous developer” the said they had so many problems with the Wii U dev kit admitted that lack of time played a huge part into it. People are creatures of habit and sometimes doing things a different way take a little while to get used to.

      So whatever this new console/handheld is they just need to make sure it appeals to the core and have enough 2nd party studios making exclusive games for it so that there will not being any droughts at the beginning. 3rd parties can go to kick rocks. Anyone that isn’t on the Nintendo ship now can stay out there.

      1. Ps4 and Xboxone are almost identical while the Wii U is very different, so I can see why these developers are lazy. The publishers should definitely give more time to developers. Rushed games are no good and we’re already seeing a lot of that this early in the generation.
        I already can’t wait to see the next gen console. Imagine a console in which you can play at home and on the road. A console/handheld, with emphasis on power/design, appealing to the core. Simply, unconditionally amazing.

        1. I had already played it before but last night I was playing Battlefield 4 on the PS4 at my friend’s house. I couldn’t believe how terrible it looked and how unfinished it is.

          Texture fill-in, pop-up, shallow draw-distance, clipping, inaccurate shadows and lighting, halos around character meshs, etc. The only thing good was that it had a steady frame-rate. And this is considered “OKAY” by EA. This is why they have a class-action suit against them. The problem is most developers are this lazy and disingenuous.

          I think before any new hardware comes out for generation 9, there needs to be a revolution in the 3rd party arena. All these bloated, overrated, immature, bro-dude serving 3rd parties need to die out. I think the independent studios will be the ones that save gaming from another crash.

  16. To be fair this story has been published on Forbes as well. I think the article is purposely twisted around to make it seem worse than it really is, but this is a legitimate story and not another troll-job by the mods here.

    1. EVERY story here is a troll-job! Sickr is the worst moderator in website history! He allows trolls to run rampant, and when someone points this out, he bans them!

      That’s what happened to me! But you’ll never silence me! not as long as there’s truths to be exposed! And that truth is that this site is inferior to http://www.nintendolife.com/ in every way possible!

      1. I don’t agree with that because I laid into him a week or so ago doing just that and I wasn’t banned. Called him out on troll-bait and click-baiting too. If someone was banned it was probably because they were being belligerent.

        There are cordial ways to put someone on blast.

  17. LMFAO at you Nintendo guzzlers of course it is TRUE!!It is all on the big news channels as well as all the gaming sites.
    The Wii U is simply dead, NOBODY even cares for it no more.Lat week the PS4 sold more worldwide than the Wii U even tho the PS4 has rubbish games at the moment.
    Which proves people are ready to fork out a $100 more for the PS4 just as the Wii U is a rip off and has last gen tech and online!!
    The Wii U should have launched at $249 like the Wii did,called it Wii2 and bundled it with a new HD version of Wii Sports and Nintendo would not be in this dire situation with their home console!!!
    It really is a good job the 3DS has become so popular as if it was lik the Vita Nintendo would be the new Sega!!
    Hey Nintendo, drop the price, change the name to Wii2 and then you might actually sell more units.
    The reason it is still not selling is that %70 of consumers still think it is just an add on for the Wii just like Wii Fit was!!

  18. LOL at you dumb Nintendo guzzlers the FISCAL year means January to April!!!STOP trying to use how many Wii U were sold in 2013!!!
    Nintendo REALLY did think they would sell 9 Million more from Jan to April but now they ONLY expect to sell 2.8 Million from Jan to April…is that really so DIFFICULT to understand?

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  20. Hey jackass! there’s a difference between fan and fanboy, or in your case a creepy add ridden asperger mechanophiliac basement dwellar with a diaper sniffing fetish! dont act like nintendolife hasnt posted false rumors or misinformations either you freak.

  21. Man you guys…a few ppl said it, there are just lowering their forecast for the rest of their business year….they are in the neighborhood of 5 and a half mil, if they hit the 2.8 it should be closer to 8 mil units sold which is only a little bit off their initial pace, I don’t know why some of us try, I’m sure most of you are 15.

  22. Why is everyone always up nintendo but like they are only one who are having issues isn’t sony going bankrupt

  23. This comes down to two things
    1, Severely restricted online game play; even between friends
    2. Game catalog
    Wake up Nintendo!

  24. I agree. This is an even bigger forecast change than when the 3DS was failing, 40% price cut and an amazing line-up of games was the result.

  25. well it’s not the end of the world. now we have all the console out it does not mean the end for Nintendo far from it. They are a tons of player who kept their money to look at Sony’s and Microsoft offers before committed to a wii U. 2014 will be the success or the death of the Wii U. Again Nintendo needs to seduce the reseller and provide tons of 1st and 2nd party games if nintendo don’t managed to get 100 titles out this years then they are screwed.

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  29. Drop the price another $50 and unleash a flood of AAA exclusives.

    Stop fucking around with the Virtual Console.

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