In the eight months since its release, the Wii U has had a bit of a tough time establishing itself as a competitor. It has missed sales targets, been misunderstood by consumers, and lost key games. And while it’s still struggling to find itself in the marketplace, the console has finally reached an important milestone: One million units sold in Japan since launch.
The figure comes from Media Create, which will likely be reflected in Famitsu’s report fairly soon. The one million sales point took thirty-three weeks to reach, which is a very long time compared to the Wii’s six-week sprint to a million and the 3DS’s thirteen-week run.
The good news is that it’s still less time than it took to sell a million PS3 systems—another system that struggled with a limited games library and high price point… but which survived its launch year and hasn’t doomed the system as of yet.
While this doesn’t mean it’s party time at Nintendo, the fact that the Wii U’s sales figures are tracking ahead of Sony’s comparative system in the first 12 months since launch—even if it’s behind the numbers set by previous Nintendo consoles—is a good sign, and hopefully a sign of things to come.
