Although Europe-wide figures are yet to surface, it appears that Wii U has been a sell-out success on its launch weekend in the UK. According to MCV's estimates, 40K units were sold throughout the UK, with retailers reporting that this effectively meant a complete sellout.
Weeks ago there were worrying reports that only 25K units would be available for the launch weekend in the UK, so these figures represent an improvement on that. It's being reported, however, that stock will only arrive at a "trickle" for the rest of the year, before availability significantly increases in the New Year. MCV believes that sales could have been a fair bit higher if the stock had been available, while estimating that more than two games were bought with each console, on average; these figures and estimates exclude download purchases from the Wii U eShop.
If correct these are fairly positive numbers for the UK, especially the suggestion that demand could have sustained higher levels of stock. Alongside Nintendo of America's 400K sales in its début week, there's been a solid set of figures and demand for Nintendo's new system; we also expect to see some big sales once the system arrives in Japan on 8th December.
[source mcvuk.com]
Comments 10
That's still a lot, and if it's a sellout, just imagine how many people will have it by the end of next year.
Tesco Direct seem to have sold out, or perhaps they just lost them all?
http://casuallyhardcore.com/how-tesco-ruined-the-uk-wii-u-launch/
Christ!!! Wont ever be pre odering from TESCO then....
Apparently the Wii sold 105,000 copies in it's launch weekend in the UK. So, two and a half times better.
@b_willers just got this email from Tesco...
Dear Customer,
Thank you for your recent pre-order for a Wii U console.
On Friday 23rd November, we emailed you to tell you that despite industry wide issues with receiving Wii U stock from Nintendo, we still expected to deliver your Wii U pre-order on the day of release. We are sincerely sorry to inform you that we had further issues with the stock and therefore we were unable to despatch your console to you last week as we had originally hoped.
We are receiving more stock of the Wii U Premium Pack with Nintendo land console tomorrow, which we will despatch by courier and should arrive with you by Wednesday the 5th December.
This is certainly not the experience that we endeavour to provide our pre-order customers, and we do understand if you wish to cancel your pre-order.
However, if you choose to wait to receive your product, as an apology we would like to give you a discount of £10 when you place your next order at Tesco Direct. We will email you a £10 online discount code in 7 working days.
Once again we are very sorry, but we do hope to see you again at Tesco Direct.
I pre-ordered mine from Zavvi. I gave them till the 30th to dispatch my Wii U, when I saw that they were no further forward in processing my order, I even gave them up till 5pm. I phoned up Game & asked if they had any left, they had, so I cancelled my order with Zavvi & went straight to Game. Got it home, waited till the kids went to bed, set it up & downloaded the BIG update & played a bit of the new Sonic All Star Racing. Then packed it away, well it is for the kids Xmas, but I needed to get the big update out of the way, that's my excuse & I'm sticking to it lol. I think the best thing to do is keep your options open. Pre-order with a company you can cancel on & if they don't come up with the goods, cancel & go somewhere else. I wasn't going to risk it not turning up by Xmas, my kids have been going on about the Wii U for a while now.
@Metabble_King 1) Wii was released in the first decade of december, when shopping season more agressive. 2) Also, Nintendo shipped just around 50K Wii U in first week (First reports saying about plans of even 25K - so they beat that) 4) Wii U sold 40K in first 48 hours; and 105K official Wii data - 72 hours, full 3 days. 5) And the last... launch sales doesn't mean anything in terms of success/not success. PS2 sold just 46K first week in UK, Dreamcast did 101K, PS3 160 or so... All those platforms ended in VERY different lifetime positions. So only time wil tell how Wii U going to find itself on the market.
400K units for US, 40K for UK...my fellow PAL gamers I feel your pain.
Amazon is still showing both SKU's as being in stock, that's where I got mine from.
40K aint bad I suppose.
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