According to multiple sources who have spoken with Eurogamer, Nintendo Wii U production will end this Friday.
Nintendo’s Japanese production line will shut down after the final deadline for orders passed yesterday. Very few orders were placed.
The end of Wii U production guarantees that this console will be the lowest selling standalone home console in quite some time. At last official count, the Wii U had shipped 13.36 million units. The final tally will likely be a few thousand more. Meanwhile, the GameCube moved 21 million units, the Nintendo 64 sold 32 million, and the Wii sold 101 million. You would have to go all the way back to the Virtual Boy, Nintendo’s attempt at virtual reality gaming, to find a worse selling unit. That console released in 1995 and sold only 770,000 units.
The Wii U was the first console to launch in the eighth generation of video game consoles. It launched in November 2012 and moves a couple million units, but fizzled out quickly. For the 12 months ending March 31st, 2017, Nintendo is only forecasting that it’ll ship 800,000 units, with about 560,000 of those already shipped as of September 30th.
While slightly surprising for its timing, it was expected that Nintendo would eventually mothball Wii U production. With the recent reveal of the Switch, Nintendo is shifting its focus. True, the new home/portable hybrid system is not due out for another four months, but it’s not like Nintendo was planning to move a huge number of Wii U consoles during that time.
Regardless, if the reports are true, it will be the end of an era. RIP, Wii U.
