Disclaimer: this article contains the words “Michael Pachter”. Some readers might find these words disturbing. Proceed at your own risk.
It’s no secret that Wii U sales have been struggling. While things are getting better (such as selling over 100,000 units in Japan in just one week), it’s clear that Nintendo needs to do more to boost sales.
We recently reported that Wii U sales have reached 4.3 million worldwide to date, and that Nintendo officially expects to sell 9 million in the current fiscal year, which amounts to a massive 2 million consoles from now on until April 2014.
Game industry analyst Michael Pachter isn’t as optimistic as Nintendo. In a recent note to investors, he said that they “do not expect Nintendo’s Wii U to fare as well, with cumulative sales of under 20 million by 2016”. By comparison, he expects Sony to sell 37 million PlayStation 4 consoles, and Microsoft to sell 29 million Xbox One consoles by 2016.
While Nintendo has been doing a better job at promoting the Wii U over the past few months, there is still a lot of work to be done. It’s also become clear that there is a lot of pressure on Nintendo to release quality games, as many third party developers have yet to embrace the system.
But there’s no denying that things are getting better for the Wii U. Recent hits such as Pikmin 3, Zelda Wind Waker HD, and Super Mario 3D World have all resulted in Wii U sales spikes.
In the end, Pachter does recognize that there are a lot of factors at play, such as pricing. He added “Should any of these assumptions prove to be incorrect, hardware and software sales will be affected, and it is highly likely that the ultimate results will differ significantly from our forecast”. Indeed.
