Wii U Will Not Be Able To Replicate Wii’s Success, Admits Nintendo

The Nintendo Wii U is definitely not the hottest selling console at the moment. In fact Nintendo had recently slashed sales estimates of the Wii U by 70% and if you thought that it was prime for a price cut in order to generate sales, like what Nintendo did with the 3DS handheld console, you might recall that Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata stated that they would not be doing that. In fact Iwata is pretty adamant about not cutting the price of the Wii U and has recently reiterated the point, stating that Nintendo will be maintaining the device’s current RRP, and that he believes it is never too long for the console to succeed.

However despite such optimism, Iwata maintained some semblance of realism when he stated that he did not think that the Wii U will ever replicate the success of the original Nintendo Wii. “It is not realistic to hope that [Wii U] will sell 100m units in the same product cycle as Wii. On the other hand, I believe it is never too late and it is possible to achieve a certain level of sales volume and a certain level of results with Wii U depending on how we write its scenario. Therefore, we would like to come up with a realistic scenario and turn Wii U into a platform that generates as much profit as possible.”

Iwata also believes that upcoming titles such as Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. will help to drive Wii U sales, which “are kinds of games that Nintendo has been particularly strong with in encouraging players to invite each other to play.” What do you guys think?

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Nintendo, wii, Wii U