Wii U

13.5 million sold, and the ideas all survived it

Shut down
19902026

The Wii U put a screen in the controller four years before the Switch made that idea work. It was Nintendo's first high definition console and its worst-selling one: 13.5 million against the Wii's 101 million. Production ended in 2017, and its online services were finally switched off in April 2024.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2011
  2. 7 June 2011 Launch
    Unveiled at E3 as Project Cafe

    The tablet controller is shown before the console has a final name.

  3. 2012
  4. 18 November 2012 Launch
    The Wii U goes on sale

    The first eighth-generation console, a year ahead of its rivals.

  5. 2013
  6. 31 July 2013 Decline
    Third-party publishers walk away

    Sales stall once the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are announced.

  7. 2017
  8. 31 January 2017 Shutdown announced
    Production ends

    13.5 million sold, against 101 million for the Wii.

  9. 3 March 2017 Revival
    The Switch launches

    Built from the same idea, it outsells the Wii U roughly tenfold.

  10. 2024
  11. 8 April 2024 Shutdown
    Online services are switched off

    Online play ends for the Wii U and the 3DS together.

The site through time

Browse nintendo.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Nintendo 2012–2024 Founded Successor to the Wii, predecessor of the Switch

Key figures [edit]

MetricValueAs ofConfidence
Downloads ▲ 13.6 million 31 January 2017 Confirmed Lifetime hardware sales reported by Nintendo

Confirmed official figures · Reported media, cites a source · Estimated analyst or our estimate

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: Production ended in January 2017 after 13.5 million units, against 101 million for the Wii before it. Online services for the Wii U and 3DS were switched off on 8 April 2024, ending online play for the console entirely.

Our analysis: Nobody understood what the Wii U was. The name suggested an accessory for the Wii, the marketing never explained the tablet controller, and third-party publishers left within a year. The hardware ideas were sound, which is why the Switch, built from them, sold ten times as many.

History [edit]

The console nobody could explain

The Wii U arrived on 18 November 2012 as the first console of its generation, ahead of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Its central idea was the GamePad, a controller with a touchscreen that could mirror the game, show a map or an inventory, or let someone keep playing when the television was needed for something else.

The problem started with the name. A large part of the audience understood "Wii U" as an add-on for the Wii they already owned rather than a new machine, and Nintendo's marketing never fixed that impression. Retail staff could not explain it either.

Third-party publishers gave it a year. Once the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One arrived with more power and a shared architecture, the Wii U was left with Nintendo's own games, which were good and too few.

Miiverse

The Wii U also carried Miiverse, an integrated social network where players left drawings and messages inside game communities, which has its own entry here. It is remembered far more warmly than the console that hosted it.

Two endings

Production ended in January 2017, weeks before the Switch launched. Final sales were 13.5 million, against 101 million for the Wii.

The second ending came on 8 April 2024, when Nintendo switched off online services for the Wii U and the 3DS. Online play, matchmaking and most online features stopped that day, seven years after the last console was built.

The ideas were fine. The Switch is a Wii U GamePad that also works away from the television, and it sold more than ten times as many.

Similar projects

Xfire The gamer's buddy list 2004–2015 Ouya The $99 console Kickstarter wanted to exist 2013–2019 Club Penguin A generation's first social network, with penguins 2005–2017 FarmVille The game that colonised Facebook 2009–2020 OnLive Cloud gaming, a decade too early 2010–2015 GameSpy The middleware that ran multiplayer, then took it away 1996–2014

Sources [edit]

  1. Nintendo hardware and software sales units Nintendo 1 January 2024 [archived]
  2. Nintendo Wii U sales struggle BBC News 31 July 2013 [archived]

Last verified: 13 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).