The Wii U is expected to be released by the end of 2012. If it doesn’t land before the start of the holiday season then Nintendo has failed in its effort to launch at least a year before the successors to the PS3 and Xbox 360.
Having sold 90 million Wii consoles to date, you’d think Nintendo would have high expectations for the launch of the Wii U. But according to Nintendo Life, the company thinks it will sell around 10.5 million units combined (Wii & Wii U) in the next financial year.
This isn’t all that many, considering the market-leading status Nintendo is entering the next-gen with. The original Wii is still selling well, and the company shifted 9.84 million of the consoles over the past 12 months. Adding the Wii into the mix by October should increase sales by a massive degree.
This all comes, of course, at a time when no one quite knows how good the Wii U is going to be, or how gamers are going to react. That will be the ultimate determining factor.
