Wii U production has finally seen its end in Japan, according to Nintendo. The said development was just confirmed in an official update posted on the company’s Japanese website, as was translated by Kotaku.
This sudden end of production is only liable for Japan. The status of Wii U production throughout the rest of the world is still uncertain.
This isn’t exactly a surprise as Nintendo had confirmed last year that Wii U production would be coming to an end soon in Japan. Also at the time, Nintendo mentioned that, as of November 2016, it had transferred each and every one of its Wii U shipments to its North American retailers for the on going fiscal year, which will end in March 2017.
It is not a secret that the Wii U has sold very short of expectations. The system, which went on sale all the way back in November 2012, has sold 13.56 million units around the world as of December 31, 2016. This compares to more than 101 million units sold for the Wii. The Wii, obviously, was a tremendous, global hit, and matching that amount of success was always going to be hard for the Wii U.
This end of production announcement today has came on the very same day that Nintendo reported its 3rd quarter earnings. During the report, it revealed that the Wii U had sold approximately 760,000 units over a nine-month period. That was massively down 75 percent when compared to the same period during the previous fiscal year.
Nintendo’s upcoming console is the Switch, which will be going on sale on March 3. A hybrid machine, the system can be used to play games at home on a large TV screen or on the go via a tablet-like screen. This comes with attached Joycon controllers, that can be removed to play multiplayer games as well.
