Every few years, Nintendo releases a new game console and in return stomps the previous model. In the USA, a buyer still managed to find a console that was actually banned from retail stores six years ago.
Imagine: 2023, a small electronics store in any small US town. The aisles are narrow, the boxes in the shop windows are faded. A passionate Nintendo fan enters the store, perhaps he has already checked out dozens of others. So far in vain. Because what he is looking for has actually been missing from most retail stores since 2017: a brand new Wii U, still in its original packaging. But on this September day he finally finds what he is looking for and buys the Wii U in question – the first and only one in 2023 so far.
The life and death of the Wii U
It could have gone something like this. Because sometimes you have to honestly admit that there are more questions than facts about an astonishing report. So from the beginning: What we know for sure is that the Wii U is an almost legendary flop in the Nintendo console series. Published in November 2012, canceled in 2017, with just 13.56 million copies sold. For comparison: As its immediate predecessor, the Nintendo Wii had around 25.95 million sales in its most successful financial year in 2008/09 – almost twice as many as the Wii U overall. Not even the ten-year-older GameCube (2001) has such an abysmal sales record as Nintendo (via Statista) is presented very clearly in a diagram.
With the success of the Switch, Nintendo stomped production and sales of the Wii U in 2017 and the laws of the market banned it from retailer shelves. But in September of this year, the Wii U, which was believed to be dead, showed a single sign of life. The report about the sale did not come from the hopefully happy buyer, but from a certain Mat Piscatella. As an analyst for the US market research firm Circana, he has access to individual sales for most retail companies in the US. It is unknown whether he acquired the Wii U out of curiosity or as a profession. “Sales fun facts” – as Piscatella writes in his post on X.
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The sale of old new consoles
The fact that canceled consoles are still being sold years after their official end is a rarity, but not an absolute novelty. The first time that a new Wii U found a new owner after 2017 was in May 2022. The Playstation Vita Unit, on the other hand, set a certain record (end of life in 2019), which was sold three times in the USA in November 2021. Apparently at least some collectors’ hearts are beating high enough to undertake the long search and expensive purchase with comparatively low performance.
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But as with these earlier cases, nothing is known about the specific sales circumstances of the Wii U. Why was it still in the range at all? Did it slip behind the shelf because of messy store management and only reappear years later? Or was it deliberately withheld in the hope of a higher collector’s value in the future? Or was there some banal mix-up during the inventory? The missing facts open the door to speculation.
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How useful is the Wii U anymore?
The model, place of sale and buyer are also unknown. Maybe it’s actually a passionate Nintendo fan who finally landed a big stroke of luck. Or maybe a – let’s say experienced – seller has sensed a good deal and has long since offered the retro console to collectors on Ebay at a much higher price. A completely unused game console is and remains a rarity, no matter how much the model flopped during its lifetime.
Mat Piscatella does not reveal whether the Wii U was sold at the original price. The basic version in white with 8 GB of flash memory and a Wii U game pad originally cost $300, the premium package was $350. Current eBay offers for used Wii U’s, on the other hand, range between 40 and 150 euros, depending on the scope of the accessories.
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Only the buyer can know whether the purchase was a solid investment or simply a passion project. But the active use of the Wii U is unfortunately quite limited. On the one hand, Nintendo closed the online shop for Wii U games in March 2023, so the classic discs are now in demand. These also only allow single player mode. On the other hand, Nintendo plans to switch off the online multiplayer modes in April 2024. So if you actually want to play with the Wii U, you will have to fully commit to a retro gaming experience. But for the new owner of the Wii U in its original packaging, that might not be an option anyway.