[Note: We’re marking this story as a rumor because the information is not being provided by Nintendo themselves, but rather someone who claims to be privy to the internal NPD Group report that is released every month.]
One of the biggest factors in gaming today that determines whether or not a game series will see more installments is sales of the initial release. It’s an important metric for companies who produce games to judge whether or not it would be worth the time and money investment to create more of the same.
According to one poster on the NeoGAF forums who claims to be familiar with NPD numbers, some of the titles released on Wii U so far have done abysmally poor, while others are are still growing. While these are by no means official numbers, the poster revealed that Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker has done exceptionally well on the charts in the United States with 326,000 units sold. 250k of those were in December, which was the month of release. January saw 30k and February and March saw 46k.
Other numbers thrown out include Bayonetta 2 at 157k copies sold since release. The truly interesting fact here is that Bayonetta 2 has outsold the original on PlayStation 3 in 18 months in a much shorter time and the game could end up outselling the Xbox 360 version of the original once it reaches the 18 month period. The move to Wii U doesn’t seem to have hurt the franchise sales at all.
While that’s good news for Nintendo, there was also some abysmal news that sheds a bit of light on Ubisoft’s quick abandonment of the Wii U. According to the report, ZombiU has just now managed to crack 200k units sold in the United States alone, despite major price cuts in the last two years since launch. Even worse for Platinum Games is The Wonderful 101 sales, which sit at just 104k in the United States.
