The March 2014 stats released for U.S. video game sales
last week showed that only 70,000 Wii U consoles were sold for the entire month, the second ever March for the console since its original release in November 2012.
With the Wii U's predecessors, the GameCube and Wii, having being both released in November in the North American market (in 2001 and 2006 respectively), a perfectly valid comparison can now be made of the three consoles sales results during their second March month - and the results do not make good reading for Nintendo!
The highly successful Wii easily beat the Wii U in terms of March sales, which was always going to happen. However, it's the margin of victory for the GameCube, previously Nintendo's worst selling console, that suggests the Wii U is in serious trouble.
The original Wii managed an amazing 721,000 units in
March 2008, eclipsing the comparatively minuscule 262,000 Xbox 360s sold during the same month. That's ten times as many consoles sold as the Wii U, roughly the same amount of time after both console's North American launches.
And despite the sales troubles of the GameCube, it still managed 165,000 in March 2003, more than twice the number of Wii Us sold last month.
There's even evidence showing that the Wii U may be lagging behind in sales to Sega's ill-fated Dreamcast console, which was cancelled in its second March. Of course, Sega's woes had more to do with the company's financial issues rather than with the console itself.
Wii U sales are expected to rise with the release of hit first-party games such as Mario Kart 8 and a new Zelda game.
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