Switch Retail Game Sales In Japan Surpass Lifetime Wii U Retail Sales In 18 Months

The software attach rate on this thing is maddening. People just want to play games on it.

But I'm told they're all ports.

When I was in middle school I was obsessed with my Gamecube/Gameboy player and Game Boy Advance because it almost felt like what the Nintendo Switch really is today. It is a game console I can play on my TV, take with me in the car, play at cafes, and come back home and put it back on the TV and keep playing.

I think the success of the Switch is proof that I am hardly the only one who loves that versatility.

There is still more I want from the Switch and more Nintendo can do with it. I hope the console only continues to be improved and expanded upon.

@PanurgeJr

Solid 3rd party ports that are well made.
Solid Indie games.
Best 1st party exclusive games available.
All portable.

That's what i was told and thats what i see.

@PanurgeJr It really drives home how valid the desire for some Wii U ports is though. A lot of people just plain skipped the Wii U, it's not as if everyone had one and just chose not to pick up some of these games.

Reporter: “First off, Nintendo, congratulations.”

Nintendo, to camera: “Hello! I like money.”

Yeah, just goes to show how night and day the Switch and Wii U are in terms of software and hardware sales. People can wonder and get annoyed about the Wii U ports all day, but it makes perfect sense when the Switch has eclipsed Wii U's software and hardware in less than 18 months.

Take note Japanese developers. Switch is the place to be right now. Oh, right. It's the west that is stubborn.

1st : In Japan a handheld sells more games than a home console.
2nd : What are the million sellers in Japan ? Mario Odyssey, MarioKart 8, Zelda BOTW... 2 Wii U games on 3...

So how could it be difficult for the Switch to do better than the Wii U when a large amount of games on the Switch are Wii U games ?

@Cobalt I think your question should be the other way around: How can the games be successful if they were already on WiiU, seeing that Japan is notorious for somewhat bad sales for ports [just take a look at launch data for a number of re-releases]

@blackice85 Only very very few gamers owned a Wii U - !This is why porting Wii U titles - gives gamers a chance to play those superb games! no harm in it at all! It helps the SWITCH Library - and everyone gets quality games to pay on the go!

I’d still love to see some more Wii U ports. Specifically the two HD Zelda remakes and Pikmin 3. Also still think 3D World would be a good port to move over, it was a great party game.

My guess is Mario Maker will get a sequel rather than a port, and I think it could be a good idea to bundle New Super Mario U with it. (I’m still hoping they announce Mario Maker as “we made a new Mario game” show off a bunch of mechanics, and then finish with, “so this is a new Mario game. But we made it in Mario Maker, and you can make not just your own levels, but your own GAMES!” And share with friends.

@Pineapple_Mohawk

I explained that already... Handhelds sell more in Japan.

@subpopz you raise an interesting point. Clearly the Wii U was a relative flop so being better than that is not big whoop.

Then again, I think about 18 million anything and feel impressed.

Is it a big seller really? Compared to say, phones, cars, Jeans, Netflix shows....

Don’t get me wrong , I love the thing but is gaming hardware sales impressive compared to other late stage capitalist gizmos

Actually, it is very simple: I owned a Wii U and a PS3 but, for the most part, I didn't care much about playing games on them. With the Switch, on the other hand, I REALLY want to play games on it.

It is not about the specs of the system at all, it is all about the experience of playing with that system, and on the Switch that experience is superb because the Switch adapts to my life-style allowing me to play freely when I want and where I want, instead of forcing me to search for an opportunity to sit in front of a TV to be able to play anything.

That alone makes the Switch the best console ever made (for me).

@Cobalt it still does not explain the discrepancies... It sold almost four times as quick, with a install base not that much larger... I'm trying to find data to support my argument, but I doubt the attach rate for handhelds is more than double that of consoles
As others have said, it is more a statement on how the wiiu failed to grab the public's attention more than anything else

I dont think beating the WiiU in anything is something to care about.

Last $60 dollar game I bought on the Switch was Xenoblade 2, I guess why none of these "records" are in the US anymore with all the rehash.

@DavidMac i really hope both the Zelda HD remakes get ported and Mario 3D World too.

I actually figured the HD remakes would come over after the insane success of BOTW. It would have been the best chance for Nintendo to capitalize on the hype. Same with Mario Odyssey and 3D World.

@Agramonte Well I mean, I think it's just kind of funny. It's nice to see this and be like "Haha, good thing Nintendo is done with the Wii U era."

The Switch is definitely my favourite system. The Wii U ports are such incredible games to begin with that they are worth purchasing again for the Switch .... not so much for the novelty of portability (even though this is a huge perk), but because it revitalized my interest in these older games and sort of "forces" me to play them again ...
And yes, I did buy all the Wii u ports and yes I did replay them all

@Klunk23 well some still playing WiiU games - So not that "over". It was also the 3DS era - not all bad

@Cobalt Agree with Pinapples' answer (it's somewhere up there)

Man, I thought we were done with the Wii U comparisons and moving on the GameCube - global Switch sales should be >reallyclose< to Gamecube by now. Yeah, we get it, Wii U was a failure, Japan likes portables, the dead every else for the past 2 years Vita still sells almost as well as the world conquering PS4 in Japan, can we move on please?

@Agramonte Yeah, but the games the Wii U actually got weren't really the problem, as most of them were generally pretty good. It's nice to see those games get a second chance to be fully appreciated. But yeah, the 3DS was (and still is) a fantastic system that made it completely worth it to be a Nintendo fan.

I still say pour one out for the wiiu. The little console that could. Nonetheless I am very happy the switch is doing so well.

@Agramonte
Switch software sales surpassing Wii U software sales isn't a surprise, nor is it a record.

But you are the type who would imply that "no record sales in the US = underwhelming sales", so I'm not surprised.

@Cobalt
"2nd : What are the million sellers in Japan ? Mario Odyssey, MarioKart 8, Zelda BOTW... 2 Wii U games on 3..."

I think you are forgetting Splatoon 2...?

"So how could it be difficult for the Switch to do better than the Wii U when a large amount of games on the Switch are Wii U games ?"

All the Wii U ports/re-releases on Switch have currently sold maybe 4 million copies in Japan, with Mario Kart 8 DX and Zelda BOTW (hard to call this one a "port" since it was a released simultaneously on Switch and Wii U, but whatever...) accounting for the majority of those sales. The vast majority of Switch games are not Wii U games, and the vast majority of Switch software sales are not from Wii U games.

@westman98 What I said was pretty clear. It had no problems breaking records in the US last year when the lineup was not full of rehash WiiU games and budget retro games.

Well, if you outsell the competing 3-1 in Japan and still get outsold by 1.3 million worldwide in the last quarter, you not doing gangbuster anywhere else now are you.

@Agramonte
In the US, the Switch broke the record of being the fastest-selling home console in it's first 12 months on the market when launch aligned. That's great.

But now the Switch is now being compared to the Wii when the it was in its second year on the market (2008). That's a year when the Wii sold 10 million units in the US alone. Nintendo could launch 5 Breath of the Wild sequels in 2018, and Switch sales would still fall woefully short of Wii sales launch aligned.

For what it's worth, Switch software sales are up nearly 100% year-over-year in the US, so I guess all those "rehashes" aren't selling as bad as you suggest...

@Cobalt splatoon 2 is the highest selling switch game in Japan selling over 2 million

Publishers and developers will still use the “it didn’t sell well on the Wii U so we know switch owners don’t want it excuse”

Yeah yeah - you turn down money.

At this point EA, Ubisoft and others that are refusing to look at the switch seriously (Ubisoft has released some good stuff but still refuses to consider the big franchises) are just looking stupid. If I was a shareholder I’d wonder why we weren’t getting a piece of this pie

Good. Now we can start the 24/7 3DS comparisons since the Switch is meant to match, if not surpass, both systems put together.

I love this bloody device. It is just amazing.

Also, just as a note to the success of Octopath Traveler: I have NEVER seen a Nintendo console games in my country be sold out everywhere both retail and online... Until Octopath came. It took 1 month, and the next shipment we get isn't ready until mid September. That game smashed sales so hard xD

It's not surprising the Switch has shifted more units. This is because the Wii u did not sell well, it was rejected by the majority of gamers. Maybe Switch sales are normal for a major console.

The Wii u had a weak launch games line up, their advertising was misleading, and the screen controller was to much of a gimmick and third party developers for the most part rejected it. And the graphics should have been better from launch.

The biggest selling point of the Wii u was, if some one in the family wants to watch TV then just switch to the handheld and play. Of course we all realised that not every game would play this way. And Nintendo did not allow for the fact that most households have more than one TV.

I'm not surprised, the Wii U was a flop and Nintendo released 2 of the best games of all times according to metacritic with Mario and Zelda, which were both exclusives.

@ekwcll Which is made on Splatoon 1, again a Wii U game. So it's even worse, 3 of the best sellers on 4 are Wii U games or related to...

Without the Wii U, No Zelda BOTW, No MARIOKART 8, No Splatoon...

@Razer
I suspect that they didn't want to confuse things for people buying a Switch for Zelda or Mario. I suspect we'll see the HD remakes of Windwaker and Twilight Princess and Mario 3D World next year after all the Smash hype dies down. If you notice the ports that they brought over were games that didn't have another game in that franchise coming out. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe came out because they're probably still working on Mario Kart 9 and don't expect it to be out any time soon. DKC came out because they probably invested a lot in it and aren't actively developing a sequel (or if they are it's a long ways out.) Hyrule Warriors launched a year after BtoW and wasn't a legit Zelda game but it did build off the hype. Captain Toad is in the Mario Universe but it's not a Mario game at all. Aces is a majorly improved upgrade to Ultra Smash on Wii U (and probably used a lot of the code base). Splatoon 2 was in the same boat as Tennis, refused a lot of code and assets but also put in a lot of new stuff to make it a legit sequel. And Bayo's sequel is still a long way's off. So none of them confuse people when somebody heads to the store and says, "My kid wants the Mario game for Switch".

I suspect they wouldn't have considered 3D World within a year of Odyssey because there'd be that small worry of "What if our last gen Mario game does really well compared to our new one?" For Zelda that wasn't a worry, but they probably do want to avoid a bunch of articles saying, "This is why BotW is so much better than Windwaker!" etc. My guess is though, that they must have at least a few people working on making sure all the Wii U games that did really well are ported to the Switch, and then they'll just keep them in their back pocket. Really this year we've had a strong number of ports, plus some great new games slated for the year, (Tennis, Mario Party, Smash, Kirby, Pokemon, plus the Octo Expansion) so it's not as if there've been not a lot of new first party games. It's just that the early part of the year when sales are normally slower had several ports of some really good games that it made sense to rerelease there. (Also I think they had Yoshi planned for spring originally but it fell through)

So my guess is we will either see a few ports next spring to provide some new games for people who haven't played them, without Nintendo having to use a title that it'd rather safe for the fall or holiday season. My guess is that they're probably working on sequels to both Breath of the Wild and Odyssey (they'd be crazy not to) with the same engines sticking largely to very similar mechanics. But they'll probably want to make sure they're really killer, so they'll hopefully spend enough time on them, and release some Wii U ports from those series to hold people over.

Next year they'll probably keep the Smash hype train going with periodic introductions of new fighters. (I'm hoping for a season pass approach, they seem to be gravitating to those, which is good.) But like I said if any of the games they have planned begin to fall behind, that's when I expect they'll throw out a few more Wii U ports, or even Wii remasters. (If they don't have people working on HD remasters of 64 and Sunshine they're insane.) I'd also love to see them look into upscaling the N64 Zeldas that they remastered for the 3DS. My understanding is that those were really faithful while offering some QOL improvements, and I think people would be happy to have Ocarina HD even if it wasn't super fancy looking. (Though if they did decide to rebuild Ocarina in the BotW engine I wouldn't complain.)

Given their plans to make the Switch an 8 year life span, I really hope that they do bring over a lot of their back catalogue. (Especially since I suspect that the Switch could very well be like the 3DS was in terms of releasing hardware upgrades that tweak the outside and put more powerful insides that allow for some games that are designed to run on the new hardware that the old ones couldn't handle. I expect we'll see that a little after the PS5 and XboxWhatever launch. As soon as Nvidea comes out with an ARM processor that can outdo a PS4 (which they will eventually, ARM is actually branching out into processors made for desktops and laptops that should match the best Intel can do. And really game consoles are all about the GPU anyway).

I should probably stop writing stuff. Good night.

I love my Switch I have already 20 physical games and a bunch of digital games

@Cobalt “ Which is made on Splatoon 1, again a Wii U game”

Wha? So because it’s a sequel to a WiiU game, it’s not a new game? Then you should just discount Mario Kart and Odyssey, because they’re clearly N64 games.
I know you don’t like ports, but that’s grasping.

@HobbitGamer

Do an effort please... My point is "IF the Wii U was never released, the Switch state will be totally different today".

No Wii U, no Mariokart 8, no Zelda BOTW, No Splatoon.
If the Switch is that great, why the hell :

ARMS is not a Million seller?
1 2 Switch is not a Million seller ?
Nintendo Labo is not a Million seller ?
Go Vacation is not a Milion seller ?
Mario Tennis Aces is not a Million seller ?
SnipperClips is not a Million Seller ?
etc...
Because those games are Nintendo Switch exclusives.

Basically, without the (back then) Wii U exclusives, the "success" of the Switch will be not that good... So like I said, WITHOUT the existence of the Wii U before and the awesome quality of its librairy, The Switch brings ON ITS OWN, not that much...

@electrolite77 IN JAPAN like the thread mention...

@Cobalt You're right, if the WiiU never existed, then the ports on Switch wouldn't exist. The ports that people are buying more of.

If laserdisc didn't exist, people wouldn't have as many movies on DVDs.
If beta didn't exist, people wouldn't have as many movies on VHS.
The presence of one item doesn't discount the presence of a successor, nor its popularity. The math, consumer flow, and business model all say that the Switch is a healthier device than the WiiU, and it's not just due to the presence of WiiU ports.

@Cobalt ok, if you want to go that route, then worldwide arms, 1-2 switch, Kirby star allies, xenoblade 2 crossed over more than a million, and they are switch titles.

@Cobalt,

The Switch is not just doing better than the Wii U,it's beating it to a pulp.

@subpopz I wouldn't be that harsh. I mean the WiiU was a cultural icon next to XBox

@electrolite77 your comment about portability is 100% spot on and is probably one of the biggest divisions within gaming.

I was actually surprised to find this out but there are perfectly rational people capable of perfectly rational cognitive thinking, cannot for the life of themselves get their heads around portable gaming and the appeal behind it.

I have 2 such friends who fall bang smack in that category, both through numerous debates have come to terms that portability is not a "gimmick" but neither understand how there is a market for it.

I try to use my situation as an example but they still struggle to grasp the notion that people who are not in my situation (99% of every human) prefer portable gaming.

(My situation is i live on a canal boat and i move around the country so all power is 12v - no tv or home consoles or pcs - portable is my ONLY option)

@Frendo sorry but who is this even meant to be directed at?

@westman98 Year-Over-Year we at 3X install base - so no way game sales could be flat. Game attach rate for the quarter is 0.9 down from 1.7 YOY. That is also almost half - So nothing to do with buying more games, they just more systems. It was in the Q/A quarterly report.

“The hardware penetration of Nintendo Switch contributed to the rise in software sales" SMBC Nikko.

This is all as laughable as when you had articles on how the VITA was crushing the WiiU in Japan or had Outsold it worldwide. The WiiU is the eternal punching bag.

@Frendo its no problem to be honest. I have a fair few peope on ignore and id imagine a few people have me on ignore so maybe i just can't see the persons reply lol. Whats their name?

@Agramonte
???
The Switch's attach rate has increased substantially from last year to this year.
Q2 2017: 13.60 games / 4.70 Switches = 2.9 Games/Switch
Q2 2018: 86.93 games / 19.67 Switches =
4.4 Games/Switch

This is a pretty dumb way to measure success to begin with as attach rate doesn't increase with install base indefinitely.

@Frendo yeap he is defo on my ignore list 😂😂😂

I also don't care about what that troll thinks.

@westman98 You were the one who introduced +100% YOY to make a point - I clarified that % is meaningless without hardware penetration data.

"pretty dumb way to measure success"

Yes, so is the so called +100% that even they clarify is "because of YOY hardware penetration" - this entire side conversation you introduced has nothing to do with anything.

@Cobalt
You severely overestimate the number of games that can sell over 1 million copies in Japan alone during the first 18 months of a platforms lifecycle.

The 3DS had 4 million sellers in Japan during its first 18 months on the market, and that system is now one of the most successful platforms ever in Japan.

I am going to coin a new term, Switch Derangement Syndrome: Where you cannot accept the success of the switch and every time its success is brought up you twist facts and ramble.

@westman98 said "You severely overestimate the number of games that can sell over 1 million copies in Japan alone during the first 18 months of a platforms lifecycle."

You mean underestimate ? Right ?

@Cobalt
No. Overestimate. Severely overestimate.

You expect Arms to sell 1 million copies in Japan when the only fighting game that has sold that much is Super Smash Bros?

You expect 1-2 Switch to sell 1 million copies in Japan when the only party games that has sold that much are Mario Party 8, Mario Party DS, and Wii Party, all released a decade ago?

You expect Mario Tennis Aces to sell 1 million copies in Japan when no Mario sports game has ever managed to sell that much?

You expect Go Vacation to sell 1 million copies in Japan when it hasn't even been released in Japan?

The Switch is a big success, but it won't magically transform every game into a juggernaut blockbuster.