Wii U will fail to sell the 9m units Nintendo has predicted for the current financial year, analysts have said.
After sales of just 460k units in the six months ending September and a global install base of below 4m units, this is looking increasingly unlikely.
That Xbox One beat Wii U’s total UK lifetime sales in under two weeks and PS4 in around 24 hours has simply added to the pressure already on Nintendo’s machine. Bloomberg reports that analysts’ average Wii u sales estimate for the current fiscal year is around 6.2m units.
“They steadfastly refuse to consider that the product is not interesting to consumers,” Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter stated. “They will fail to hit 9m, and they will likely miss their profit goals.”
Pachter told an audience at the London Games Conference last month that the Wii U was “toast”.
SMBC Nikko Securities analyst Eiji Maeda added: “Wii U has become a game console only for Nintendo fans. Wii U needs ground breaking software to draw casual and hardcore gamers.
“It’s going to be difficult for Nintendo to sell 9 million Wii U consoles this fiscal year. Iwata needs to plan what to do next year if the performance this year isn’t good.”
As if things weren’t bad enough for Nintendo, hopes that the release of key IP for the machine would reverse its fortunes also appear to be fading.
Super triple-A critical hit Super Mario 3D World last week debuted to the lowest sales ever for a 3D Mario game in Japan and was yesterday beaten by PS4 launch title and critical flop Knack in the UK charts.