UK and Australian retail stores reduce Nintendo Stock.

[VG_Addict]

http://oxcgn.com/2013/09/26/australian-retailer-clears-out-nintendo-stock-including-wii-u/

http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2013/09/25/nintendo-shelf-space-substantially-reduced-at-major-uk-retailer-tesco/56723/

Is it safe to say the Wii U is dead? In any case, it's definitely not a good sign. I've never heard this happen for a console.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Well it's certainly not good. The two biggest supermarkets (ASDA, and now Tesco) basically dropping nearly all Wii U stuff? Yeah, not exactly a great sign.

Hell, there's barely any Wii U stuff in my local GAME. You want to know how many copies of The Wonderful 101 they got it for example? 6. In total.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

Is the WiiU dead? Not really. Not from this, anyway. My experience with Dick Smith's is that they only stock a bare minimum of each systems best selling game lines at the best of times, so all in all it won't be that big of a loss. Were it EB Games (The Australian version of Gamestop) or JB HiFi that would be more of a concern, but its not, so I wouldn't read a whole lot into it.

 

[VG_Addict]

Do you think Nintendo could make their next console in 2015?

Though, Nintendo will almost certainly post a profit next time with Pokemon, MH4, Wii Fit U, and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze.

 

[Church185]

The wall space for the Wii U and 3DS sections (combined) are only about half the size of the PS3 section at my local Gamestop. The 3DS sells pretty well there, but a lot of the average consumers still don't know what the Wii U is and why they should care.

 

[VG_Addict]

Could Nintendo drop out of the console race next gen?

 

[Church185]

Could Nintendo drop out of the console race next gen?

Ehh, I'm not sure they will. First off, their handhelds are selling pretty well so even if they dropped out of the home console market they could stay afloat, provided that developers don't just start making games for phones. On top of that they still have a ton of money saved up, so they could probably take a couple more stabs at the home console market before waving the white flag.

 

[VG_Addict]

But they're selling the Wii U at a loss.

 

[Church185]

But they're selling the Wii U at a loss.

I understand that, but you underestimate the sheer amount of cash they have. The Wii U is failing, so we may see Nintendo cut their losses and discontinue the thing if their first party titles don't attract the kinds of sales they want.

Nintendo itself is a far cry from failing on the other hand. While their stock may have recently dropped 6%, their stock is still worth 37% more than it was this time last year.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/31/exactly-how-bad-is-the-nintendo-situation

 

[Hazy992]

Could Nintendo drop out of the console race next gen?

No. Even if they completely fuck up this gen, they have enough money to weather out a couple of hiccups. Besides the 3DS is pretty much printing money at this point.

But they're selling the Wii U at a loss.

You're acting as if this is the first time this has happened.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I can't see Nintendo dropping out anytime soon seeing as how they are minted as fuck and their 3DS selling like hotcakes.

Also hearing of low stocks in the UK isn't going to stop me from buying a Wii U.

 

[Casual Shinji]

So I guess that means by the time the Wii-U might actually become attractive in both price and game library, it'll be so obscure you won't even be able to get one.

It's the Gamecube for me all over again.

 

[Vivi22]

For what it's worth: no. For one, the Wii U is now seeing a bunch of games come out which have raised the profile awareness of the system.

And yet it's selling less in Japan than the PSP. Yes, you read that right.

It's not dead of course, but let's not kid ourselves here: it's not doing particularly well and a large part of that has been Nintendo making a host of bad decisions with this thing.

 

[DrOswald]

For what it's worth: no. For one, the Wii U is now seeing a bunch of games come out which have raised the profile awareness of the system.

And yet it's selling less in Japan than the PSP. Yes, you read that right.

It's not dead of course, but let's not kid ourselves here: it's not doing particularly well and a large part of that has been Nintendo making a host of bad decisions with this thing.

Can you source this for me? I can't find reliable sales data on the PSP in Japan. What I have seen is pretty contradictory.

Edit: Actually, the more and more I look the more and more I see the Wii U is consistently outselling the PSP in Japan. Are you sure you got this right?

 

[major_chaos]

Is it safe to say the Wii U is dead?

No, it really isn't. Just wait, once Nintendo comes out with a new Zelda game and "New super mario bros: another bloody one" I think we will see WiiU sales spike immensely. Nindendo consoles have always been carried largely by first party titles, something which the WiiU was lacking. As for my personal feelings, currently the WiiU has exactly one game I care about, so if I ever do buy one it won't be any time soon.

 

[Bad Jim]

But they're selling the Wii U at a loss.

Name a non-Nintendo console that hasn't been sold at a loss in its' first few years.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

If anything I'd say Nintendo isn't doing well in the west because based on what I've been reading about their hardware and software sales in Japan, it sounds like Miyamoto finally got his 3DS to start printing money. It's too bad that the Wii U is struggling as much as it is but I haven't got my copies of Wonderful 101 or, Luigi U yet. I probably won't be getting their other big name titles once those are out in the coming months either...not on the U anyway...here's hoping the U will make a come-back.

 

[Roxas1359]

But they're selling the Wii U at a loss.

Most if not all consoles initially sell their product at a loss. They recover it later on though. For example, the PS3 initially sold at about a $500 loss, but managed to break even a few years later after major restructuring, and now the PS4 is selling at only a $60 loss at launch.

OT: Well this isn't good for Nintendo. I do feel that markets are really starting to cut down on Nintendo's shelf time, but at the same time I don't blame the stores if the console hasn't been selling well at all and the stores have had to reduce the prices of the consoles immensely to even try to get them to sell.

Nintendo dropped the ball extremely when it came to advertising their console, and that's still a problem here. People still think that the Wii U is just an expansion of the Wii that just costs more and don't know it's a new console, which shows how naming a console really has an impact here. Then they only advertise a few games every now and then, and even then if it's not first party then it's treated like crap. Not once has there been a Wonderful 101 ad on TV nor has there been one interrupting me as I'm watching a YouTube video, and what's the result? Wonderful 101, while it's an excellent game, has flopped completely. Hell Wind Waker U has been out on the eShop for a while now, no idea why Nintendo isn't releasing the physical copies at the same time as the digital ones. Especially since I know many people who do have a Wii U (myself included) are avoiding the eShop for a lot of things because of the fact that there is no account system at all.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

Trying to draw any conclusions from what Dick Smith does is silly, the company is in a transition from being owned by Woolworths to a new private equity firm and even before that they only ever dabbled in gaming. To be honest Big W (Woolowth's department store) was always more game focused than Dicksmith was. As someone said above if it was EB, JB or Gametraders then you could start drawing some conclusions, even if it was Kmart, Target or Big W you could get some ideas but not Dicksmith

 

[fix-the-spade]

Could Nintendo drop out of the console race next gen?

Unlikely.

Bear in mind this is the company that sucked up the losses from Virtual Boy like it was nothing, plus suffered sequential 'failures' for two home hardware generations (N64 then Gamecube). Neither of those stopped them making hardware.

Wii U looks to be doing worse than either of the N64 or Cube, mainly because there's no 'real' Nintendo games out. Pikmin 3 arrived and was somewhat underwhelming, Smash Brothers is coming at some point and Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Starfox are notable by their absence so far. At this point it might be too late even for those to drive sales as physically getting hold of the hardware is becoming difficult. It's nowhere near a Virtual Boy type disaster though.

Conversely, it took the 3DS and Wii well over a year each to get going, the 3DS especially was all set up to be a massive bomb, which seems silly now. Nobody has the ability to come out of a bad situation richer quite like Nintendo.

If the Wii U is truly unrecoverable, expect a true 'next gen' Nintendo console with absurd amounts of money thrown at first party titles, they won't abandon hardware as it's their preferred method of DRM. I don't really understand why they haven't started putting old games (like early Pokemon, Mario and Zelda etc) onto the Itunes store though. There is an opportunity to make all the money doing that for minimal cost and those title's respective hardware generations are long past the point of profitable.