GameStop President: Wii U Sales 'Slower Than We Expected' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 14 March 2013 / 6,917 Views
GameStop president Tony Bartel spoke with Forbes about the next generation console race. He has said that sales of the Wii U have fallen below the retailers expectations since the holiday period ended. He added that software is key in selling hardware.
"Following the holiday launch period, sales have been slower than we expected," said Bartel. "Nintendo plans on launching some of their biggest IP over the next few months which we think will increase gamer interest."
"Software will play a big role in each console’s success over the holidays," Bartel answered when asked what Nintendo needs to do to compete with the PlayStation 4 and next Xbox. "We’re already seeing great developer and publisher support for PS4, so Wii U will need some great titles, especially first-party titles, to compete. There’s also a need to increase consumer awareness of the new features available on the Wii U and its tethered tablet features."
The PlayStation 4 and next Xbox will have a huge impact for the industry which has seen sales slow down in the last couple of years. Bartel believes that gamers are more than ready for the next generation of consoles and the launch will "re-energize the entire industry."
"Video gaming is much more mainstream now than it was at the start of the last cycle, so there are a lot more dollars to fight for this time around," answered Bartel when asked what has changed in the industry since the Xbox 360 launched. "I also think consumers’ expectations for technology improvements are much greater now than it was seven years ago. Finally, gaming is becoming increasingly social, so continuing to expand the connection to other gamers will be key."
Bartel also added that exclusives are key to setting the consoles apart from each other. He mentioned Halo as a franchise that sells consoles. He also added that high quality and unique new IPs is what drives console sales at launch.
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I want to know what happened to their half a million preorders.
Exactly! They were the first to show off the supposed hype
I bet this time next year he's gonna be saying the same thing about ps4
Time for some games!!! And drop the price a little.
Give people a few good games to play, then they will come.
5th Generation Home consoles (PS1/N64/SAT) combined to sell about 140 million units. 6th Generation Home consoles (PS2/XB/GCN/DC) combined to sell just over 200 million consoles. 7th Generation Home Consoles look to hit 270 million, maybe even more. Of course 8th Generation Home consoles will combine to sell more consoles, the question is who will get the biggest piece of the pie, and will all platforms do better then their 7th gen counterparts? Sony's PS3 did worse then the PS2, and before that Nintendo's GCN did worse then the N64. Is it Microsofts turn to drop in sales?
I think if the next XBox is Kinect focused, they will soon learn that gimmick new control type stuff might drive sales, but public also gets tried of such things fast. The only way to succeed long term consistently is to produce quality software... the hardware is secondary (all those red lights of death dead Xbox 360 consoles didn't matter when they had the best HD software in those early years).
The ability some people have to state the obvious surprises me...
drop the price a little, release a version with 256gb internal memory, release a few games and for god sake market it! A load of people who bought wii think wii u is just a tablet for the wii....
WiiU sales numbers less than GameStop preorders stated.
I never buy nothing at Gamestop.
big problems for ninty, first problem is the pseudotablet-controller y not "ultimate newest" and not catch public attention, que wiiu is too expensive (limited hardware), and casual public from the wii.....they stay on the wii
If the Wii U is too expensive, prepare to see disastrous numbers from the PS4/720 when they release at $450
Wii U sales went up 40% over January....which is pretty damn good considering not a single retail game was released. "Big problems for ninty" my butt
Lower than "expected"???
The problem being you expected such a device to sell like that... THAT as the real problem.
big problems for ninty, first problem is the pseudotablet-controller y not "ultimate newest" and not catch public attention, que wiiu is too expensive (limited hardware), and casual public from the wii.....they stay on the wii
