The Wii U had a pretty good release in 2012. Three million consoles sold in the holiday season is nothing to sneeze at. But apparently, as the holiday season ended, so did any sense of momentum and progress for the newest entry into the console wars.
Via Gamasutra, estimated Wii U sales for the first two months of 2013 combined may be as low as 120,000. They provide a couple of reasons for this (speculators hoping to resell the console for a profit during a projected shortage, then returning the consoles when this secondary market failed to happen, a lack of new premium games for the consoles over the last few months are two of them).. but I think Sony and Microsoft have good reason to look at these numbers and be concerned.
I've said it in previous posts, but I abhor playing it safe. No one can say the Wii U really played it safe. There's a lot of interesting features in the new box.. it's not nearly as powerful as the next-gen products from Sony and Microsoft, but it had hoped to beat them on the same things that made Wii such a big player in the "current" generation. Unique features the other consoles couldn't match, and fun games outside the big sellers that the other two consoles feature.
I do think a lack of premium system selling games is a huge issue here, and if I was Sony and Microsoft, I'd be double and triple checking with third party sellers to make sure that the premium third party titles will be ready for the PS4/720 in the months after system release. But it's amazing to see how the Wii U has just fallen off a cliff, sales wise.
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