According to Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan, Wii U was a mistake that Nintendo may not be able to recover from.
Wii U sold only 55,000 units in January across the US, whilst Xbox 360 shifted 281,000 units and only accounted for 1.6% of the UK’s total games market in January. Wii U sales in US are currently down 38% on the original Wii.
“I think they misfired on the Wii U,” said Pachter. “It’s just not that different from the other two [existing] consoles, and the gameplay isn’t as unique as the Wii. They made a mistake, it’s something they probably can’t recover from.”
“I think they have made a costly mistake [with the Wii U],” said Pacther. “And their handheld business can’t save them in the face of cannibalization from smartphones and tablets.”
However, not all experts are so down on Nintendo’s chances of recovering, he was only negative voice. Fellow analyst Roger Kay said, “The Wii U sales do look pretty bad,” and stated the Xbox 360 has better momentum than Nintendo’s device.
“Great games, unique to the platform, would be a very good start,” Baird analyst Colin Sebastian told GamesBeat.
“Games, games, and more games,” IDC research manager Lewis Ward told GamesBeat. “The relationship between key releases – primarily first-party titles – and hardware sales is especially clear in Nintendo’s case. The sooner they get titles like Pikmin 3 and Wii Fit U on the console side and Pokémon games and titles like Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the 3DS side on store shelves, the better.”
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Source: GamesBeat