Nintendo expects to sell 10.5m Wiis & Wii Us during FY12/13

NewsPublish Date 25/07/2012 - 10:43am GMT+1

Ninty hopes for big Wii U sales during first few months of release.

Nintendo expects to sell 10.5 million Wii and Wii U consoles worldwide during the fiscal year ending March 2013, it's revealed.

The figure includes total forecast sales for both consoles between April 2012 and March 2013.

But considering the Wii's flagging sales, the majority of those sales are expected to be of the upcoming Wii U console.

Wii only managed to sell 710,000 units worldwide between April and June 2012, compared to 1,560,000 during the same time-frame in the previous year.

Based on the assumption that Wii sales will continue to fall, VideoGamer.com predicts that Nintendo hopes to sell around 7.5m Wii Us before April 2012 - this is based on a crude estimate of 3 million Wii consoles sold in the financial year.

Wii U is due to launch in Japan, the US and Europe "at the end of the calendar year".

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guyderman

I believe the Wii was a one off with it's monstrous sales figures - it hit the news and all of a sudden everyone 'HAD' to have one. I think a lot of people will look at the fact that their Wii has sat gathering dust between Birthdays and New Years each year and won't be quite so quick to jump on the band wagon this time. Nintendo may need to rely on a majority of their sales coming from gamers and not so much from a casual audience, at least until the inevitable price drop. Whilst on the subject of price drops, Gamers have experienced rapid drops in price from both the 3DS and the Vita over the last 12 months which has got to make more people think about waiting before purchasing. I think they will hit their predictions eventually but possibly not within the timescale they have wanted.

Posted 12:55 on 30 July 2012

CheekyLee

I also think that the sales figures are optimistic, but ...

People expected the Wii to flop, and Nintendo went and demolished predictions with the simple tool of getting Wiimotes into peoples hands. Those demos in shopping centres? They worked. And all the new converts then went and showed their friends Wii Sports at their next dinner party, which made them go and buy it as well.

My sister owns a Wii, which she bought purely for Wii Fit. She now also plays Just Dance and Zumba on it. She has friends who do the same with their Wii.

We can't think of Wii U in the same terms as we do PS3 and 360. The Wii has an entirely different audience. Those consoles have tried to tap in to the expanded market, with mixed successes.

What it means is that, unlike Wii, Nintendo have three market streams to punt to. Those of us who have as many consoles and games as we can afford, those of us who will buy every machine Nintendo make just to get the latest Nintendo games, and the existing Wii users from the casual sphere. If the pick-up from group 3 is even half ... that's a LOT of potential sales.

Posted 09:46 on 30 July 2012

pblive

I'm all for Nintendo, but I don't believe that everyone who bought a Wii will be upgrading, not even 75% of Wii owners. Why? The general demographic of Wii owners doesn't point to the type of people who would upgrade day one or even consider it important to upgrade within the first six months.

Now if they get their advertising right and show that the Wii U is a much broader console appealing to an even wider range of people they might just get a lot of sales, plus gamers are hungry for new hardware according analyst reports, so there might be some sales there.

But overall, I think these figures are over-optimistic.

That said, if I can afford it, I'll get one!

Posted 09:36 on 30 July 2012

Batmamerc

If its released November they could sell bout 5 mil wiiU's before Christmas just going by everyone who currently owns a wii will want the upgrade but they need to pound the advertising prob start now to get the hype up to ppl who are not in the loop like us family's for example, it's going to be massive for sure can't really use it's handhelds as an example to sales as I don't think ppl need or want handhelds wen iOS and android games are just as good and can do a lot more than just gaming too and the 3DS had bad health publicity problems at launch. The wii will die off fast give it a year and it will be discontinued.

Posted 08:49 on 30 July 2012

MJTH

Yeah, I kind of doubt this will be the case. 10 million in 4-5 months is a bit to optimistic. I would expect like FM said, 6-7mill would be about right. If you take into account the fact that 3DS has sold 19mill world wide, in a year and a half, even with a slow starting few months 7 mill is the most plausible.

Posted 17:34 on 25 July 2012

stealth

Its possible

Posted 16:18 on 25 July 2012

Clockpunk

I can see a lot of Wii units being traded in, and possibly put towards the price of a Wii-U, which will likely lead to aggressive pre-owned console prices. That will damage sales figures for that console... and I just can't see the Wii-U selling, as FM says, around 7.5 million units in 4 months.

Posted 13:22 on 25 July 2012

Woffls

FY12/13 will be a profit for Nintendo. Wii U will sell millions with a profit margin, and 3DS will ship more YOY because there's a lot of great software this year.

A great deal of the extent depends on the strength of the yen relative to other currencies, and the dollar has strengthened significantly in the last year or so, which is a good thing. Don't know about the Euro, though.

Posted 13:06 on 25 July 2012

FantasyMeister

Given Nintendo's rather optimistic sales forecasts and the current recession I can see them losing a lot of money at the end of the 2012 fiscal. Extrapolate current sales figures and it's 2.1m Wiis by Christmas, maybe 3m tops for the year once the Wii U launches, then that gives them 4 months to shift 7.5m Wii Us. Not going to happen.

Posted 12:45 on 25 July 2012

Timid

'Nintendo expects to sell 10.5 million Wii and Wii U consoles worldwide during the fiscal year ending March 2013'...

...and only we can stop it!

Seriously, it is us gamers who can only spoil things for them regarding sales figures.

Posted 11:43 on 25 July 2012