Nintendo announced yesterday that the company expects to sell 10.5 million consoles from now until March 31, 2013. With the declining Wii sales, Wii U Daily estimated that the Wii U would account for about 8 million of the 10.5 million consoles sold. But game industry analyst Piers-Harding Rolls from IHS Screen Digest has quite a different opinion. He predicts that Nintendo will only ship about 4 million Wii U consoles to retailers, and 6.5 million Wii units.
His numbers just don’t make much sense to us. Last quarter, the Wii sold 750,000 units, according to Nintendo. And this number has been falling steadily over the past few years. If that trend follows, over the next three quarters, the Wii will sell about 2.5 million units. That leaves 8 million home consoles that the Wii U would account for — hence our prediction of Wii U sales of 8 million by March 2013.
We’re not sure what analyst Piers-Harding Rolls based his numbers on. Perhaps he believes Wii sales will magically pick up and start selling in the millions over the next 9 months. Which is a crazy thought, especially when a brand new console is coming out. Nintendo will turn all their marketing attention to the Wii U, and while the original Wii will continue to be sold, Nintendo certainly won’t be promoting it nowhere near as much as the Wii U.
Via CVG
