Wii U Sales Surpass 460,000 Units Worldwide Thanks in Part to Pokemon X and Y
Nintendo confirmed that the Wii U sold over 460,000 around the world in the last 6 months in a time period ending on September 30.
Altogether, the console sold 300,000 units last quarter, a significant increase from the 160,000 the previous quarter.
Nintendo also sold 6.3 million units of software in the last 6 months, and a total of 3.91 million Wii U's since launch reports IGN.
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While numbers still are not great, Nintendo's rise in popularity is largely due in part to the lowering of the console, and the influx of exclusive games that were severely lacking at launch. Games such as Pikmin 3, The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker HD, and the upcoming Mario Bros U and Mario Kart 8 are helping turn things around.
"Their sales remain pretty weak, so although the price cut helped, it isn't enough of a turnaround to instill confidence that sales will rebound," Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, told NBC News.
Wii U sales have gone up by over 200 percent in the U.S. from August to September, and 685 percent in the UK.
Nintendo U.K. recently admitted one of the biggest problems the Wii U is facing is that people do not know it is a new system and relate the console to the regular Wii.
Nintendo partnered with Tesco to create more awareness for the console with a series of promotional campaigns and advertisements, reported VG247.com. The company sent 300,000 Tesco customers who bought a Wii a five-page booklet explaining all about the Wii U and including money-off vouchers for games.
Tesco is also continuously playing commercials for Mario, Donkey Kong, and Zelda until Christmas. Also, coming are press advertorials and a promotional tour set to reach around 115,500 shoppers.
"We haven't had the sales we wanted on Wii U hardware. We haven't had the software for most of this year. But we have some quite ambitious numbers, particularly with some of our biggest franchises coming," said U.K. marketing director Shelly Pearce. "Our monthly tracking shows that Wii remains the No.1 console for brand awareness. This offers us a massive opportunity to convert Wii owners to Wii U."
She also said Nintendo has a lot of work to do to be on the up-and-up, but the interest is definitely growing.
"There was a big misconception at launch about what Wii U is. And one of the big messages is that this is a new console and a new controller. There are many people out there that don't know what this is," she explained.
However, despite the lackluster sales of the Wii U, the 3DS is going as strong as ever especially with the release of Pokemon X and Y. Overall the handheld has sold 3.89 million units.
