Wii U claws back with monster sales leap in the UK

Wii U
Picking up the pace

After a painful period of bad news for Nintendo's home console, the Wii U has bounced back this week, with an impressive 125 percent jump in sales.

The spike is largely attributed to the launch of Monster Hunter 3: Ultimate, one of the biggest titles to land on the Wii U so far.

HMV also slashed the price of the premium model by £140, making it £200 starting March 25, which has no doubt helped the console move from the shelf and into consumers' hands.

Good Wii Hunting

The Monster Hunter series is hugely popular, and Nintendo has been banking on the game's exclusive arrival on the Wii U to be a console shifter - and it wasn't wrong.

But while the jump is great news for the Wii U, the console's weekly sales are still lagging behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, and it's likely that we'll see Nintendo's numbers drop again once the Monster Hunter launch window is over.

The "build it and they'll come" approach to the Wii U didn't quite pay off for Nintendo, which quickly discovered that the console needed to do more than simply ride on the success of its predecessor. Put simply, it needed more games.

It's interesting to see HMV taking matters into its own hands with the price cut. We saw a similar thing recently with the price of the Playstation Vita being cut by US retailers, while Sony stood firmly by its RRP.

Via MCV

Hugh Langley

Hugh Langley is the ex-News Editor of TechRadar. He had written for many magazines and websites including Business Insider, The Telegraph, IGN, Gizmodo, Entrepreneur Magazine, WIRED (UK), TrustedReviews, Business Insider Australia, Business Insider India, Business Insider Singapore, Wareable, The Ambient and more.


Hugh is now a correspondent at Business Insider covering Google and Alphabet, and has the unfortunate distinction of accidentally linking the TechRadar homepage to a rival publication.