Nintendo Wii U deliveries collapse

Deliveries of the Nintendo Wii U have collapsed over the past holiday season. This is evident from the quarterly figures of the Japanese manufacturer. While Nintendo sold 1.87 million Wii Us during the holiday quarter in 2015, there were 200,000 in recent months.

The drop in deliveries is probably partly due to the upcoming release of the Switch in March. Nintendo announced the cross between console and handheld in October. In addition, stories about the Wii U being discontinued have come online, which probably didn’t do much for consumer interest either.

Wii U shipments have been falling for some time, but the 89 percent drop in the holiday quarter is the biggest yet in the console’s lifecycle. The Japanese company delivered a total of 4.18 million Wii U games. That is also a sharp decrease compared to the more than ten million the year before.

Nintendo shipped a total of 3.74 million units of its 3DS consoles. That is slightly more than the 3.6 million of the holiday quarter in 2015. This means that the deliveries of DS handhelds have grown slightly by almost 4 percent.

The Japanese company also announced in the presentation of its quarterly results that it is delaying the game Animal Crossing for mobile platforms. Nintendo does not mention why it is delaying the game or when it will be released exactly. Nintendo says Animal Crossing will be released in its next fiscal year, which runs from April this year through March 2018. Animal Crossing is the fourth app Nintendo announced for mobile platforms, after Miitomo, Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes. The latter will be released this week.