The slow uptake for Nintendo's latest home console continues as the platform completed the year 2014 - its second full year on sale - with around 9.2 million sales worldwide.
This compares poorly to the 18.5 million global sales of PS4 as of January 4, and the 10 million Xbox One units Microsoft said it had shipped into retail by November 2014, despite the Wii U having been out a year longer than both Sony and Microsoft's platforms. At this point in its respective life the Wii had sold over 44 million units. Wii U hit the 9.2 million sales mark after selling through around 3.03 million units in the nine months ended December 31, 2014, according to the latest financial report from Nintendo.
Software unit sales for the console hit 20.59 million units during the same nine month timeframe, bringing the life-to-date total up to 52.87 million units.
3DS family hardware sales slowed year-on-year, selling 7.08 million units in the period compared with 11.65 million the prior year, despite the release of the New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL in Japan. Life-to-date hardware sales for the 3DS family topped 50.41 million as of December 31, 2014, with total software sales reaching 215.96 million units.