As many people might know the Nintendo Wii-U was considered a flop in comparison to the likes of the Wii, GameCube, SNES along with the NES in terms of sales. In fact the Nintendo Switch has recently surpassed the Wii-U in terms of sales and has reached over 20 million units worldwide. Since its release back in 2012 the Wii-U has sold roughly over 13 million units worldwide has managed to become one of Nintendo’s least successful consoles in general. While we still got many cool games such as Super Mario 3D World, Bayonetta 2, Splatoon, Mario Kart 8, Nintendo Land and others on the Wii-U there are some who believe that the console had the potential to sell more than it did.

Some people might argue that backwards compatibility was a factor on why the Wii-U did not sell nearly as much as the original Wii console did. When we look at consoles such as the PS4 which was released in late 2013 it managed to become a huge success throughout a majority of the 10’s decade despite not having backwards compatibility. Ever since, its release the PS4 has managed to sell over 80 million units worldwide.

The Xbox One may have sold more than the Nintendo Wii-U but it has not sold nearly as much as the PS4. The exact numbers in regards to sales for the Xbox One was never revealed but it was believed to be between 25-30 million units worldwide. The Xbox One is also a console with backwards compatibility with older generation games from the Xbox 360 which may have played a role in discouraging people from purchasing it has much as the PS4. If Nintendo has made the decision not to make the Wii-U backwards compatible it would have been interesting to see how much the console would have sold between 2012- 2016.