Wii U sells 308k in Japanese launch weekend

Wii U is out and about in Nintendo's home country of Japan, and its release weekend drew fairly brisk sales. The console moved 308,570 units over its the weekend according to Famitsu and Enterbrain (via GamesIndustry International).

Its top selling game was New Super Mario Bros U with 170,563 units, meaning more than half of all Wii U owners also snagged the latest Mario platformer. It was followed by Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, which moved 110,159, or a bit more than one for every three buyers.

Wii U's Japanese sales couldn't quite match those of Wii, which moved 371,936 units over its first weekend. Famitsu reports Wii U's Japanese launch weekend is the seventh best in all time, behind PlayStation 2, GameBoy Advance, Nintendo DS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita. (Yes, PS Vita had the sixth best Japanese release weekend, which tells us not to read too heavily into initial sales.)

The system moved about 400,000 units in its first week at North American retail, compared to 475,000 for Wii.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.