The Wii U is struggling for sales worldwide, unfortunately, but at least it has finally risen past Microsoft's poor record in Japan, passing the Xbox 360 in Japan.
Eurogamer reports that the Wii U has now sold 1,643,095 units in its home country, winning the battle of the struggling consoles compared to the Xbox 360's 1,641,528.
To be fair, those are the Xbox 360's total liftetime sales in Japan, a console that launched nearly a decade ago, so it makes sense the Wii U might not have passed it right away. But the Xbox brand has always sold very poorly in Japan, and that total number is not a hard benchmark to pass.
The Wii U only launched a bit over a year ago, sure, but Japan is Nintendo's home territory where it's always been successful (the Wii sold around 12 million units there) and a year should be enough time to be well beyond that number.
We recently heard that the PlayStation 4 sold 322,083 units in Japan on its opening weekend alone and has sold more than 5.6 million units since its launch in November. You would expect that to mean, even under hardware constraints, the PS4 would outsell the Wii U within several months if the trends continue. Keep in mind that Sony's console is $50-$100 more expensive depending on which bundle you purchase.
Nintendo's struggles are unfortunate, and hopefully the console turns around. There has been some decent software with one or two very good games (Wind Waker HD, Pikmin 3) for the system-perhaps upcoming software will spur hardware sales.
