Report: Wii U game sales behind Wii, GameCube
Looking at the December NPD results, you may have noticed that the 3DS's New Super Mario Bros. 2 placed in the top ten sellers in the US, but New Super Mario Bros. U was nowhere to be found, nor was any other Wii U exclusive.
Analyst Doug Creutz of Cowen & Company's interpretation of the Wii U's early software sales is troubling. "Totals for the November-December period were -43% lower than software sales for the Wii and -50% lower than those for the GameCube," Creutz reports. It's not the most auspicious start for the new hardware. The only US Wii U software sales number to be released by Nintendo is 580,000 units of New Super Mario Bros. U, sold in November and December.
Worth noting is that the Wii U offers full games through its eShop, sales of which would not be counted toward NPD software sales totals. Like all digital game sales, the numbers are unknown, but there is some unknown additional commerce taking place that wasn't on the Wii and GameCube.
Joystiq has contacted Nintendo for a comment on the report, but has yet to hear back at the time of publishing.
