Wii U sales touch 400,000 during week 1 in UK, games fail to secure place in Top 10 on UK chart

By: Jason McCarthy

  |   December 4th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

Wii U has already reached the European shores and so far, the going has been pretty smooth for Nintendo’s first-ever HD console.

Launching in UK and the rest of Europe on November 30, the console has made a pretty decent impact in the market.

So far, 400,000 units have been sold, which is a very impressive figure, considering that it has hardly been seven days since the console hit the shelves.

Most of the retailers have already run out of stock, while Nintendo has the manufacturing department working hard to meet the market demand, which is still very high.

Consumers in UK find themselves with an option to choose from three Wii U packs, a pricier 32GB premium Wii U pack bundled with Nintendo Land, a 32GB premium Wii U pack bundled with ZombiU, and an 8GB basic Wii U edition, which is the cheapest.

So far, shoppers are seen to give preference to the pricier version of Wii U over the cheaper version.

As per the Chart Track report as seen on VideoGamer, Wii U Premium Nintendo Land Pack accounted for 60 percent of the sales on the launch day, whereas Wii U Premium ZombiU Pack accounted for 30 percent sales.

The basic Wii U edition only accounted for 10 percent of the sales, which clearly showed where the interest of the consumers lay.

The trend seen in the UK market was quite similar to what had been seen in the US market following the console’s launch in the region on November 18.

Even though 400,000 units of Wii U were sold during the first week of its launch, none of its software managed to make it into the Top 10 on UK chart.

The Wii U entry that came closest to entering the coveted Top 10 on the UK chart was Nintendo Land, though it got as far as number 11.

Other Nintendo games that were quite prominent on the chart included New Super Mario Bros U, which entered at 14, and Ubisoft’s horror survival first-person shooter ZombiU, which entered the chart at the number 17 spot.

Prior to Wii U’s launch in any region, the critics were coming down hard on the possibility of Nintendo’s next-generation console finding success in a market where the likes of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 had a strong footing.

However, the Japan-based company had put a great deal of faith in the brain child of its Research and Development team, a tablet-influenced controller named GamePad. The console also attracted third-party support, which, combined with the various new features of the hardware and GamePad in particular came off as a combination guaranteed to bring success.

So far, Wii U appears to be doing pretty fine, but what needs to be seen is whether it manages to maintain this impressive position in the market, or if succumbs to the forces that the analysts have been pointing out since the past few months.