1 Wii U Was Sold In September 2023, The First Since May 2022

The Wii U is moving up the sales charts, but not very far. According to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, one Wii U console was sold in the United States during September 2023.

Zero new Wii U consoles were sold in the 16 months prior. The last time before September 2023 that a Wii U was sold in the US was May 2022. This counts new units sold at a retailer, not any secondhand, off-market transactions, of course.

Piscatella shared this fascinating fact on social media today. He also divulged that the last time a new PlayStation Vita unit was sold in the US was November 2021. Three units were sold then.

Some people wondered how it might be possible that the Wii U was able to sell even one unit this year because hardware manufacturers are known to buy back stock after production has concluded. That may be the case for Wii U, but Piscatella pointed out that it's entirely possible some units meant to be bought back were actually returned.

The Wii U was the successor to the hugely popular Wii console, and it didn't exactly catch on in the market in the way that Nintendo wanted. It ended its run with 13.56 million in unit sales and 103.6 million in game sales. Those are the lowest hardware and software numbers for any Nintendo platform in the company's history (except for the Virtual Boy).

For comparison, the Switch has sold 129.5 million units and more than 1 billion games. A new Nintendo console was reportedly shown to developers at Gamescom in August and could launch in 2024.