Oct 15, 2023 16:00:00

Nintendo will sell one new Wii U in 2023, which is already out of production.

Nintendo discontinued production of

the Wii U , the previous generation game console of the Nintendo Switch, in 2017, and announced that it would end the online play service for the console in April 2024. Still, it seems that unopened Wii U is being placed on retail store shelves in the United States, and it has become a hot topic as it has been revealed that one new Wii U was sold in 2023.

Nintendo sold a single new Wii U in 2023, against all odds - Polygon
https://www.polygon.com/23916234/nintendo-september-2023-wii-u-sales

Matt Piscatella, a game industry analyst at research firm Circana , said, ``For the first time since May 2022, one new Wii U was sold in the United States in September 2023. PS Vita In the case of , the last time a new Wii U was sold was in November 2021, when 3 units were sold,'' he posted on X, revealing that 1 new Wii U was sold in September 2023. I did. He said this is information recorded by Circana's retail tracking service .

1 new Wii U was sold in the US in September. First time a new Wii U sold since May 2022. Last time a new Vita unit sold was in November 2021, when 3 (!!) were purchased.

Is any of this at all meaningful? No. Sales fun facts that do not matter.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) October 13, 2023

According to Piscatella, Circana's retail tracking service covers 97% of hardware sales in the United States, and ``covers sales data for most retailers.'' In addition, the Wii U sold in September 2023 seems to be new, not refurbished or used.

Wii U, which was released in December 2012, is not a very popular game console, with cumulative sales of 9.2 million units in the three years since its release, and 13.56 million units as of the end of June 2023. doing. On the other hand, the cumulative sales of Nintendo Switch, the game console sold by Nintendo at the time of article creation, has reached 129.53 million units, about 10 times as much.

Polygon, a foreign gaming media outlet, said, ``It is extremely unusual at any point in time for a retailer to have such an old inventory of game consoles, as manufacturers will eventually ask for the return of the game consoles.''2023 'This console must have been sitting in the back of a retail store for a while until this rare new Wii U went on sale in September.'

According to Piscatella, information about where the Wii U was sold is not available. In addition, it seems that such ``one-time sales'' are recorded quite frequently for other game consoles, ``probably when bringing a dusty game console buried in the back of a store to the store. , this is what happens,' Piscatella said.

There aren't that many Wii U titles that haven't been ported to the Nintendo Switch, but they include `` The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD '' and `` The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD .''