Wii U vs. PS4 and Xbox One: Competition is 'Good for Us' Nintendo President Says
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata feels the added competition of the PS4 and Xbox One is good for the Wii U because the industry becomes "energized" as a whole.
Iwata also said while the two other consoles will be targeting a hardcore gamer base, the Nintendo will always receive interest from any party because of its longevity, and the return of classic characters.
"Other companies will launch new consoles (in the overseas markets at the end of this year), but I think they focus on targeting highly skilled users. Therefore, in that sense, though the competition will heat up because new game consoles will come out and there will be a 'war of the game consoles' played out in media articles, we wonder if the target user will actually be the same," Iwata said at Nintendo second quarter meeting reports Segmentnext.
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He continued, "The games available at the end of this calendar year, 'Super Mario 3D World,' 'Wii Party U,' 'Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games,' 'Wii Sports Club' and 'Wii Fit U,' all lean more toward family use, and we are targeting those who bought Wii and would be interested in the Wii U offerings. That is slightly different than what other companies are aiming for."
"Thus, in the sense that we attract consumers interested in this category of video games, I think the launch of other video game systems is also good for us because they energize the video game industry as a whole."
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.
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.
