Nintendo Celebrates Super Smash Bros. and Wii U Success in NPD Results

Well it's nice to see some positivity. I don't even mind if the Wii U comes last in the console race, as long as we get good games for it and it certainly has delivered.

Going against multiplatform giants like FIFA and Destiny, Smash is doing great on only one system. Not knocking other games, but that's pretty impressive. We just need a steady stream of quality games to keep it going.

So Wii U sold like 110,00 units in NA last month? If that's right, that isn't as terrible as normal. Pretty sure my maths are off, but anyone who is in the know more than I am can correct me.

Wow... Sports games still sell well no matter how bad they are and Destiny at 1.... UGH!!!!!!!!!

@NavySpheal Fiat? lol

@ferrers405 Got caught slippin' XD

And all of them were losing horribly to cellphone and tablet games-- sadly.

So glad I finally got my Wii U earlier this year. I spend more time on my PC than on my Wii U, but that's mostly due to my Steam backlog and the low price of games there.

RIGHT! Can someone please tell me what NPD & SKU actually stand for?! Thanks! Positive news, I'll take it. Love my Wii U regardless but it does please me to see it doing well. Bring on Smash Wii U...

Those results are rather smashing aren't they.

I'm happy to see 3DS getting good momentum again, it was a rather dry summer. The Wii U I'm sure had decent numbers, but I never find it encouraging when they don't directly give us numbers.

Still though, it looks like a good setup for Nintendo with the holidays coming up. On a side note, I still can't put down smash bros.

This doesn't say how many people returned Destiny either. I'm hearing it has a pretty high return rate.

Also Hyrule Warriors needs more love. The reviews are killing what's otherwise an excellent game. A whole lot better then I thought it would be and it's got the most play time on my system for retail only behind Monster Hunter.

Sucks all the other great games that released on Wii U didn't sell well. People could by the Wii U and complain they don't have any games to buy when clearly they don't know what has been out for the past 2 years

190k for Hyrule Warriors !?! Wow thats MUCH better than i expected, way to go !

(Its a Musou game in the west)

Everyone on most message boards out there are discussing why Destiny sold more on X1 than on PS4, while I'm just happy to see Smash 3DS position that high on the chart considering it was only tracked 2 days of sales and the huge amount of competition it has and even more since each of those games are multiplatform. I'm kinda proud of Smash 3DS y'know? :') haha. Hyrule Warriors doing better than expected! Zelda hype is still strong.

@Faruko It really is. I think if it can manage to sell 500-600k WW then that will be a success. I know forva Zelda game that's peanuts but this IS still a Musou game at its core

@BLPs

I think NPD stands for New Product Development.

@AdanVC USA is microsoft's land, if the XB1 (and Destiny) isnt selling better than the PS4 then the XB1 would be dead by now

I know the PS4 was selling much better than the XB1 on USA but that wasnt going to stay like that, it was bound to change

Man, just went on a rant on the UK post and now this? Maybe I should go back and delete it

Wii U line-up has some great exclusives and really should be selling, advertising would certainly help, but when 9 of the top 10 games arent on your console well I guess that says more than I ever can. Sure Destiny may suck, and I dont get why FIFA sells well in the US, and Sims 4 is PC only, but when you add them all together and the Wii U isnt getting any of them, well thats just not good.

And thats what Nintendo needs to address. It seems like the Wii U is in hiding. When you're the underdog you have to try harder and go with your strength, and right now the Wii Us 1 and only strenght is its exvlusive line-up, which is far and away better than any other system out there this holiday as PS4 only had DriveClub and Xbox1 has Sunset Overdrive. So Nintendo needs to push their exvlusive not found anywhere else games Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2 and Captain Toad this holiday. And MK8 thats in the bundle. Exclusives, exclusives, exclusives, thats how they should market Wii U.

Good. I hope Hyrule Warriors keeps up and sells a million, this has been the biggest surprise for me at how fun and fresh and new ( for me) this game is. I have never played anything like it and I have been playing since 1988. I would have given it a 9/10...

The real good news is that Smash 3DS beat out Shadow of Mordor, which was released at the same time, and in three different platforms. Way to go! I hope Smash U manages some equally impressive numbers.

If these are for the Month of September when does the NDP run from? Because Smash came out in October?? Confused...

Fifa and madden?

People disgust me.

@AugustusOxy Define "losing". You are comparing apples and oranges there.

Anyway, this just shows how ridiculous the market is and why Nintendo can't succeed in such a market.

I think 190,000 units for Hyrule Warriors is pretty good. Despite the Zelda name, at its core its a Warriors game, which is a niche series in the West. People who want a true Zelda experience might have skipped it over or will wait till it drops in price.

For me, I just got my Wii U a few days ago and I picked Wind Waker HD as my first Zelda game to play through. Hyrule Warriors looks fun, but I want wait a bit on it.

190,000 is not a bad number, in fact I think it the best debut for a warriors game in the US in years . Not to mention, the game came out on September 26th, which means there are only a few days of tracking.

I can see Hyrule Warriors reach 250,000-500,000 units at some point.

Does anyone know what HW has sold in Japan? I think there's a good chance it could be a million seller world wide.

@Caryslan and a Warriors game that is an exclusive, and only on a console where third party exclusives have struggled.
Bodes well for Bayonetta 2 which will probably sell more as a Wii U exclusive than if a third party had completely funded and published it and made it multi platform.
If you add in the fact that Rayman sold best on Wii U, I'm expecting more third parties to reconsider the Wii U, particularly if Bayonetta 2 and Devils 3rd both sell very well, and if older third party games, particularly exclusives like Zombie U and Lego City Undercover pick up enough sales over time where they finally turn a profit.

Can people stop slating the UK chart now? FIFA ahead of Smash and PS4 outselling Wii U by 6 to 1 in the States, but apparently it's the UK that hates Nintendo. Sure, it's not doing well over here, but it's not doing well anywhere. Even in Japan where most weeks it's the top selling console, the numbers are tiny. Sorry, I know people will say I'm being negative, but it's really frustrating that every week we see people commenting that this stuff is doing so bad in the UK that Nintendo should pull out, when it's really doing no better in the US. The Wii U has seen way more top ten appearances in the UK than in the US.

@BLPs thank you, I'm not complaining as such but yeah, everytime I see an article like this I'd hope to see the proper term used in the first instance to explain the acronym. I know what it means I just wasn't sure exactly what it stands for! Not really a big deal and I probably should know by now lol. Thanks!

I'm baffled by the PS4's success at this point and I'm a PlayStation guy. The system has literally nothing going for it though. Both the Wii U and X1 have better exclusives and the price advantage is gone, PS4 has the best hardware but why would somebody in the new market give a f*ck about that when there's nothing to play that can't be found on other consoles? MS shot itself in the foot with stupidity before this gen started so there's that but there's no reason Wii U shouldn't be outpacing PS4.

Is FIFA15 the first FIFA in fourteen years to not be on PS2?

@BLPs @MJKOP
NPD: National Purchase Diary, global market research company.

How can anyone be happy with with 190k units sold for Hyrule Warriors when SSB sold 705000 & MK8 (released months ago) is still selling with 60k? I bet the developers aren't happy!
I'd be interested in what sales numbers the developers need it to reach/pass for them to see their game as a commercial success?

Surely this number is a small percentage of the WiiU's out there in the US.

I wonder what the overal world sales of HW is?

I absolutely love this game and have the season DLC pass and thought this would be a surprise console selling hit across the world. Then again it can't sell if no one knows it exists and we are back to the subject of lack of prime time Advertising. Word of mouth only goes so far Nintendo.

I hate sports games. They poison the market. They're just as bad as COD. It's the same freaking game every year, I'm tired of it.

It Must be just me, but I'm starting to feel bad for the vita, it's an awesome system but Sony just don't care about it anymore.

I personally don't see the point of vita tv if you have a ps3, since most games can be played on both systems with crossbuy. Vita NEEDS AAA and indie exclusives.

@readyletsgo Vita just got Minecraft. That could make all the difference if they bundle it with the system. Something 3DS will never have.

@JimLad that's very true! Forgot minecraft since I have no interest in it. Hopefully it pulls it back from the brink in sales here

Is this the first time we've heard about download sales?

I don't quite care very much about Wii U sales, as long as it sells enough for Nintendo to turn a profit and for them to continue to support it with great games like Mario Kart 8, the upcoming Smash Bros, The New Zelda game and so on and so forth, then that's all I really need...

@andrea987 thank you!

What's so good about fifa?!?!?!?! There's like no change at all between fifa games. Seriously, and EA makes fifa... You should know what to expect from EA.

@Laxeybobby You have never seen the numbers of a Warriors game dont you ?

The best selling game in the franchise sold around 2m on the PS2, which has an install base od 10 TIMES THE WIIU

Also, the popularity of Smash and Mario Kart its infinite times higher, lets just say that MKWii solsd 2 times the life time sales of all Warrior games... Combined, Smash Brawl sold 12m on the WiiU

Hyrule Warriors selling 190k on a console that its on life support on the US its A LOT, and give us hopes that Bayo2 could sell decently

Ill be in shock if this game manage to sell 1m copies (thats a 10% attach rate), reastically it should sell somewhere between 450-650k, 800k would be godlike

So SSB3D sold 300,000 less units here than it did in Japan in the same time period? That's actually pretty bad.

@BaffleBlend It went against Fifa 14, Evil Within, Destiny & Borderlands

considering that, those are great numbers, not to mention Japan its A LOT MORE into handhelds than the USA, the vita its still SOMEWHAT relevant in Japan were as here its just dead weight, on the other hand, the PS4 its going stupidly strong in the USA but in Japan its dead... its selling even less than the WiiU

@Laxeybobby

Some Dynasty Warriors numbers to take into consideration
Hyrule Warriors - 190,000 (8 days) WiiU
Dynasty Warriors 5 - 150,000 (4 months) PS2
Dynasty Warriors 6 - 220,000 (10 months) PS3/360
Dynasty Warriors 7 - 220,000 (9 months) PS3/360
thats how big 190k is for a Warriors game in the West, other games took them MONTHS to sell what HW sold in 8 days (not to mention the install base its a lot less)

@Gamer83

There's a lot of reasons why the Wii U had such a poor start. Some were Nintendo's fault, some where third parties jumping ship early and some were just bad luck overall. I personally blame Ubisoft heavily for not giving Rayman a proper chance, as it really damaged the Wii U's reputation. Not everyone will agree with that however, but it was a perfect storm of events. That residue is obviously still there, and will probably remain for most, if not all of its life cycle.

As far as the PS4 goes, it was just the opposite effect. Nothing was ever the same after the 2013 E3. From that moment on, it seemed Sony could do no wrong. It's amazing what hype can do for a company.

These results are encouraging for Nintendo. As long as they can right the ship, it's ok if they come in last this generation. I've said it time and time again, they need to hit black ink by the end of the business year. This has nothing to do with money, it's just the principle of it.

@BaffleBlend

"So SSB3D sold 300,000 less units here than it did in Japan in the same time period? That's actually pretty bad."

You're not accounting the fact that there's around 16 million 3DS's in Japan compared to 12 million in the U.S. Those numbers aren't bad at all.

@MoonKnight7 Not to mention handhelds are the king of Japan, while consoles are in the west, im sure there are a lot of 3DS gathering dust in the USA because of that, or they got it to play that 1 game (Pokemon) and thats it (not because the lack of games, because if the 3DS had problems thats not one of them), the West is not that big into handhelds

@Gamer83 I have all 3 systems and I can justify the purchases for each. Now let's be real here...and objective. Nintendo has more first party exclusives out (due to them being out a year longer). However, Sony technically has more games than Wii U for it's library. Whether quality is called into question is irrelevant. The system has games. So your purchase is justified. As far as Xbox is concerned, they have just as many triple A titles as Sony does, but not games. How does Microsoft deserve to stand next to Nintendo in your eyes, but Sony doesn't?!

As far as exclusive games go, I would say Nintendo is best...for now. Please don't go and say that they (Sony) don't have games to play. That's ignorant to say. All 3 have games to play. If you really want to the answer to your question, I'll give you my view.

As far as current consoles go, the Wii U is not as powerful as the other 2. I'm not saying that it's underpowered. It's just not AS powerful. Not all gamers like the gamepad either, not even Nintendo gamers. Not every gamer wants the Kinect, not even Xbox gamers. Which is why MS decided early within a year of it's release to take the Kinect out and sell it seperately. Without that, price parity among the 3 is right where it's suppose to be. Heck, you can even say that the Xbox should be 50 dollars cheaper without the Kinect seeing as the PS4 is more powerful. Let's take Nintendo out the picture for a second because I believe every gamer should own a Wii U. It's the only console you can play Nintendo games on and it's a pretty good console. Now back to the other 2. Now without the Kinect, the PS4 and Xbox One are pretty much the same with one being a bit more powerful. Let's take into account that multiplats for the most part will look and play better on the PS4. Who do you think will by a technically inferior console (hardware wise)? No one. They will go to the PS4. The exclusives is what will determine who will win 2 regions, U.S. and U.K. Everywhere else is PlayStation. So the more popular powerful system with more games will appeal more. The hype train is over. People that say the PS4 is selling on hype alone are foolish. Now this may look as if I'm downplaying the Xbox One, I'm not...or that isn't my attention. This is from a consumer standpoint. The Xbox One is an excellent console. I recommend it to anyone.

So now that the Xbox and PS discussion is out the way. Let's get to the Wii U. Now you have one console who has powerful first party exclusives, but lacks tremendous 3rd party games. Then you have another console whose 1st party games aren't as popular as Nintendo's, but still strong...however has tremendous 3rd party support. Both consoles have great indie support, but Sony edges Nintendo out there. So now we have a "preference" issue. At this point, you're either going to prefer what Sony has to offer, or what Nintendo has to offer. Either way, Nintendo needs to be in the equation for either Sony and/or Microsoft. Or you can have all 3 like me. That way you don't miss anything.

Now I wasn't singling you out. Just informing you that Sony place in this console race is deserved. I didn't even mention all the other fiasco's and what not. I got straight to the point because all that DRM and stuff is irrelevant.

WiiU is 50% up from August... K' we'll take your word for it. N.

Madden Destiny and Fifa. Why U higher than smash?

@Faruko

Thanks for the information and I happily stand corrected.
The developers then must be very happy with these figures then.
I'd still be interested in how many units are sold world wide, especially in UK.

This for me is a great game, love the Zelda lore and I believe its been made with a lot of love and respect to Nintendo, Zelda and the games playing public. Certainly my game of 2014 so far. (Although I have Bayonetta on pre order)

@Faruko

Thanks for the information and I happily stand corrected.
The developers then must be very happy with these figures then.
I'd still be interested in how many units are sold world wide, especially in UK.

This for me is a great game, love the Zelda lore and I believe its been made with a lot of love and respect to Nintendo, Zelda and the games playing public. Certainly my game of 2014 so far. (Although I have Bayonetta on pre order)

Well, just got my Wii U this month so I should count toward the October NPD results:)

@Faruko I think what makes this even more impressive is that it came out in a month where Destiny was running on the hype machine and getting most of the gaming press, and a strong month for Madden(since September is when Football season starts)

That's the key for Nintendo, they need the games that will make people want a Wii U. Hyrule Warriors sold very well, and its another feather in the cap of the Wii U. They don't need to beat the PS4 or take the crown as the top system this generation.

Just carving up a nice little market as a secondary system will do them very well. As the lines between the PS4 and Xbox One's libraries become blurred due to having pretty much the same games, the Wii U stands out more and more.

Smash will sell Wii U's this holiday season, and I think the Wii U might have a good chance of keeping its second place spot. Microsoft themselves are struggling to sell the Xbox One, and even a free game promotion did not help them this past month.

I think Nintendo has to be very happy right now. They just need to keep the games coming. Build up a library of games people can't find anywhere else. That has always been their strength with the N64, Gamecube, and Wii.

It will work again. It might not make them the top system this gen, but they don't need that title. The Wii U will still sell good as a great secondary console for people who want to play Nintendo's games.

@Peach64 Who say's Nintendo should pull out of the UK? While their devices don't sell like hotcakes there that would still be a dumb move.

I want to see what happens when Smash Bros comes out.

@LUIGITORNADO

Yeah, NHL I do understand but FIFA and MADDE..c'mon! But it's kind of sad that they push those out every year, sometimes with little changes and people buy those with no questions asked. And that's why they keep making those. I'd like to play NHL -game once again...

misses days with SNES and NHL95

X1 isn't really.. well, it is made for US. Europe goes with PS like it has always done. And then Ninty for Japan

As for HW, oh I've played it so much! And Adventure mode, got even my hubby to play with me and he likes the game too (I just don't understand why the gamer like him cannot read what the mission is ) I hope the sales go up, if Smahs for U would bring up the hardware sales before Christmas.

@Larryislife second that statement!

@BassLostie it is out..

Man Destiny was so freaking boring I sold that after 2 weeks