It’s not exactly breaking news that the Wii U’s sales haven’t set the charts on fire, with many saying that the platform is already a thing of the past. Others hold faith in Nintendo’s brand power.
Weighing in on the matter is GameStop, the US’ largest videogames retailer, who explained to investors that they has always expected the Wii U to sell below par. Michael P. Hogan, Executive Vice President of Strategic Business & Brand Development, said in an earnings call (transcribed by SeekingAlpha):
We’ve been asked a number of times about the performance of the Wii U and how that factors into the model projections. In previous versions of the model, we assumed the success rate for the new 2013 consoles, the Sony and Microsoft consoles, at 80% to 85% of prior generation. Based upon what we knew at the time however, we had modeled the Wii U at a much lower multiple of prior generation sales for both hardware and software. Thus, we already had very conservative assumptions for the Wii U. And at launch, the Wii U exceeded those expectations. They all since then have been softer, but the key will be holiday 2013 performance.
With big first-party exclusives coming for the Wii U, GameStop hopes that this holiday will turn things around:
It is worth noting that in our PowerUp Rewards consumer research, the No. 1 reason consumers give for not yet purchasing the Wii U is the limited number of new games for this console. Post E3, we are excited about the number of new games from Nintendo, and we do see the potential for significantly improved performance this fall and holiday.
The rest of the earnings call was dedicated to talking about how the next generation consoles would account for most of GameStop’s revenue this holiday, with it set to be “the largest console launch in history“. The console’s talked about, however, were those of Nintendo’s competitors.
Pikmin 3 proved successful, but only enough to get the Wii U out of the abyss. The Wonderful 101 is set to release this weekend, but doesn’t have enough brand power to make a big splash. It’ll be up to Super Mario 3D World and the rumored Wii U Holiday bundle to get the console back on track.
