The rise and fall of the Wii U gray market

by **robometal cowboy** » 28 Dec 2012 17:11

The rise and fall of the Wii U gray market
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The Wii U isn't selling on eBay as the Wii was. Does that mean the Wii U is less popular? That's one way of looking at it. We could also guess that the system stock isn't anywhere near the dire situation that the Wii faced. Again, this could have to do with popularity or Nintendo learning from their mistakes. Whatever the cause, the effect is Wii Us selling for retail price on eBay, if they sell at all.

Feature here (thanks Jet Pilot!)

by **LegendofSantiago** » 28 Dec 2012 17:14

I don't think anyone should expect wii numbers. It is selling well though, just not wii well

by NF » 28 Dec 2012 17:19

I'm so glad these horders didn't get to take advantage of people this time 'round. I was checking all the upset folks at the redflagdeals.ca forum and I had a little smile on my face. Good for Nintendo on keeping up with demand. Yes, there was lots of demand, but everytime the stuff sold out, there was new stock. Funny enough, the Wii Mini seems to be a good move as quite a few of them flew off the shelves it seems. In fact, there were far more mini's out there than Wii U's. They had good exposure too as when you walked into the shops, you couldn't help but notice the huge stack of red and black boxes... that slowly started to drop in size as people were buying them.

by **Aiddon** » 28 Dec 2012 17:19

five bucks says we'll see an overanalysis of this within the next week.

by **XCWarrior** » 28 Dec 2012 17:27

As long as its selling, that's the big thing. Don't want it selling on ebay. ebay needs to fix a number of things right now, starting with insane shipping costs.

by **Lockdale** » 28 Dec 2012 17:36

I bought my Wii off e-Bay, when I couldn't find one in stores. I didn't have to do that with my Wii U since I learned my lesson from from Wii experience and had pre-ordered the Wii U. Even if I did not pre-order, I wouldn't have to go the route of e-Bay again, since stocks have been plentiful of Wii U units during this Christmas season.

Also, I doubt that any future console will have the launch numbers that the Wii had. Back in 2006, the Wii was innovative, yet cheap---also you could get away with an SD console since HD wasn't dominant at the time.

by **komicturtle92** » 28 Dec 2012 18:17

I have to laugh at people saying they see LOADS of Wii Us on shelves and untouched- therefore it's not selling well.

When, it's the BASIC. The DELUXE is sold out. I've never seen one on shelves. Must be an ego thing with these folks.

But yeah, no ones wants the basic. Reminds me when no one seem to have wanted the CORE X360 back then. I saw lots of those. And my brother couldn't get one because he wanted the one with an HDD but had to wait a year for it. There's a variety of reasons why the Wii U as well as past systems sell or don't seem to sell. Nintendo did a great job keeping up with demand (at least, maybe the Deluxe- the Basic there's too many).

I guess Best Buy is trying to push the Basic Unit out with Nintendoland. If the Wii U wasn't doing well, they'd probably throw an extra game with the deluxe which isn't the case.

by **kdognumba1** » 28 Dec 2012 18:31

I hate the vultures. Sorry. I really can't sympathize with them. Also I'd like to go ahead and say I'm very happy with how Nintendo is handling the Wii U supply right now. I love the steady flow.

by **Mike_Intellivision** » 28 Dec 2012 19:37

komicturtle92 wrote:I have to laugh at people saying they see LOADS of Wii Us on shelves and untouched- therefore it's not selling well.

When, it's the BASIC. The DELUXE is sold out. I've never seen one on shelves. Must be an ego thing with these folks.

But yeah, no ones wants the basic. Reminds me when no one seem to have wanted the CORE X360 back then. I saw lots of those. And my brother couldn't get one because he wanted the one with an HDD but had to wait a year for it. There's a variety of reasons why the Wii U as well as past systems sell or don't seem to sell. Nintendo did a great job keeping up with demand (at least, maybe the Deluxe- the Basic there's too many).

I guess Best Buy is trying to push the Basic Unit out with Nintendoland. If the Wii U wasn't doing well, they'd probably throw an extra game with the deluxe which isn't the case.

I have been in my BestBuy twice recently -- once today and once right before Christmas.

Both times, both toys of WiiU units were plentiful, though there were more Basic units. Of course, this is one place, a college town, at a particular time, after the students had left. So it could be a restock that didn't sell through or two restocks. Still, indications re strong sales, just not the unexpected out-of-sight sales of the Wii.

Mike from Morgantown

by **Jerome** » 28 Dec 2012 20:35

Wii sold for $250 with a collection of simple and familiar sports games that were made fresh and intuitive by being playable simply by moving as you would in real life, using a small and simple one-handed controller.

Wii U sells for $350 with an ecclectic collection of unorthodox games that require a great deal of instruction, constant looking back and forth between two different screens, and every kind of control scheme and input technology you can think of, and all require use of the largest and most complicated controller ever included with a console.

I think it's understandable that the reception would be somewhat different.

by **Muigi** » 28 Dec 2012 20:55

I think everyone can agree that the Wii U is never going to mimic the Wii's insane sale success... For what it's worth, it's doing just fine.

At least it's doing better than how the PS3 was at launch...being sold as a $600 blu ray player. >_>

by **Ragnarokstorymaker** » 28 Dec 2012 21:01

I just don't understand the logic of "I saw the Wii U at a store, therefore its not selling", I mean mimicking the Wii's success isn't going to happen, sure, but come on, its selling really well.

by **Nintendude92** » 28 Dec 2012 22:05

Good, f#!$!@ those guys

by **tellis429** » 28 Dec 2012 22:10

Well it's not hard to see why. Steady shipments and marketing that makes you assume the thing is a controller will do that.

I had to get that one in there.

by **uWaAvenger** » 29 Dec 2012 00:03

yep, I Literally just bought a Deluxe wii u for 340.00 dollars on ebay (10 dollars LESS than retail)

by **Koopzilla** » 29 Dec 2012 00:49

So sad these people can't buy up all the WiiU's and rip people off by selling them on e-bay for double the retail price. I hate people who do this. When I was in line for the Wii half the people there were buying them just to sell them on e-bay, and a lot of people who actually wanted them to play couldn't get one.

by **Jerome** » 29 Dec 2012 05:03

Well, after Wii was sold out for so long and the DS was so successful, I was aware that reselling 3DS or Wii U systems could potentially profitable because of huge initial demand. After taking a good look at Nintendo's new strategies with the systems and their respective new big features, I decided the chance of their taking off wasn't very good. Seems I was right in both cases.

by **Mahe** » 29 Dec 2012 09:26

The games aren't there for Wii U yet. It doesn't have a Wii Sports, Zelda Twilight Princess, Rayman Raving Rabbids (Rabbids Land isn't as good as Raving Rabbids was) or many other games that made Wii a great system right at launch. New SMB U is good, but we just got New SMB 2 on 3DS a couple of months ago so there's some Mario fatigue too.

by **warbearer** » 29 Dec 2012 20:18

Take that you lousy scalpers, for giving people hard time buying stuff at retails.

by **huupawel** » 30 Dec 2012 01:52

stop comparing 2012 with 2006, please