Thanks to the lack of a clear, "signature" game, the Wii U has been fighting an uphill battle since its launch, but it's not down for the count yet.
With last month's release of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, sales for the console have surged, increasing by over 25 percent according to a press release. In the first eight days of the game's launch, more than 130,000 digital and physical copies of the game were sold, which "helped sales of Wii U hardware increase by nearly 25 percent over the same month last year."
It may not be enough to help the console keep up pace with the competition from Sony and Microsoft's respective PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, but one place Nintendo clearly doesn't need the help is with its handheld lineup.
"In early 2013, Fire Emblem Awakening launched for Nintendo 3DS and became one of the surprise hits of the year. Bravely Default, which launched for Nintendo 3DS on Feb. 7, improved on the launch of Fire Emblem Awakening by more than 10 percent, selling more than 200,000 combined units in just over three weeks."
The release also noted that Bravely Default and Tropical Freeze managed to finish as the second and fourth best selling software SKUs for February.
And of course, the DS has more than plodded along thanks to Pokémon X and Y. Despite being out for almost half a year, sales for the games are still going strong, managing to bring in more than 130,000 sales combined between them in their fifth month, bringing worldwide sales of the games to over 3.4 million.
The handheld has a lineup of game releases scheduled to keep it going strong over the next few months, but the Wii U still needs a solid game to do the same. The only problem is that earliest title that could be just such a contender, Mario Kart 8, isn't expected until the end of May, and the Kong clan won't be seen again until the next Smash Bros. game drops at an unspecified date sometime later this year.
