Earlier this week, Nintendo head Satoru Iwata said in an interview that, "at the end of the Christmas season, it wasn't as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom. But sales are not bad, and I feel it's selling steadily." This means quite a few things for Nintendo at the moment. See, last year Nintendo posted an operating loss. It's the first year that has ever happened to what is essential gaming's biggest player. A lot of factors played into this but the biggest one by far were the poor sales of the 3DS, the company's last handheld. While sales for the handheld have greatly improved, Nintendo now has to bank on the Wii U being their workhorse for the foreseeable future. Another problem the Wii U faced was one, ironically, of availability. This is the first time Nintendo has released two different versions of a console at launch. They have the cheaper, 4GB, "White" version and a 32GB, "Black" version that also comes with a copy of Nintendo Land. Iwata said that the problem was that they expected the cheaper version to be in higher demand when actually, consumers wanted the premium version but couldn't find any. While this is certainly good news for Nintendo, one can't help but wonder what the future holds for the house that Mario built.
Now, I don't want to sound all doom and gloom though. That future is definitely looking up, especially with the announcement of a brand new Pokemon game, the series jump to the 3DS, earlier this week. I also think that when Nintendo finally announces a new flagship title like a Mario game, or a Legend of Zelda, or the new Super Smash Bros. game, sales will dramatically increase like they did with the Wii. But, until then, selling steady isn't half bad.
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