More importantly, how many people were waiting for a deal on it, if 10k people in the UK want one and have waited for a lower price, and they all have one now, dropping the price again doesn't mean instantly that they'll sell more again. Also 125% increase in marginal sales is still marginal. up to the 25th may sales were 24k units worldwide, I think it was 5-6k in Europe, which you would guess is probably sub 2k in the UK, for just HMV would could be talking about 200 units instead of 100, or at best maybe 1k instead of 500.
EDIT:- misread it slightly, it did say it boosted Uk sales but doesn't say monthly sales. The Wii U still supposedly sold under 7k the month before, this could still mean only doubling, being generous, 500-600 units in the final week up to 1200 maybe.
From the rest of the article, they say Vita's "upshift" might be cause to be positive, its not, there is only one competitor for the Vita(one real one) and no "new gen" on the horizon and Sony support behind it. Wii U has dev's jumping ship , a new gen very very close and the last gen all outselling the Wii U still. They hoped for 9million sales this year, they sold over 3mil at launch and have added about 400k since then, they'll have trouble, seemingly, selling more than a couple million this year, infact, 2mil would be a pretty high target with current numbers, a very high target, it likely can't do that without a significant drop in price straight away.
The problem is its expensive because they put money into old tech, gpu's are massively more efficient than the old school gpu they are using, and more efficient cpu's than the one they are using and they are making them on an old process meaning much bigger and higher power usage.
PS4 is now being rumoured to cost $350 at launch, thats likely £250-275 in the UK...... they are going to offer such significantly better performance and better game libraries.
I can't see it selling well once the new consoles release unless it hits below £150, maybe well below, but they are competing with inefficient hardware on the wrong process. THe same level of performance on a current gen AMD gpu, quad core Jaguar and 28nm process would save a HUGE amount in manufacturing, they've shot themselves completely in the foot with this one.
The X1 is looking to be around $399 with a heavily rumoured lower price + subscription(that most people will get anyway) version, potentially being £300 for full price in the uk with maybe as low as £200 with a subscription.
As for games, the problem with games is the Xbox 360 had few games at launch and it took a long while for "loads" of games to come out, but at no stage where developers saying they might no support it, let alone flat out saying we're ignoring it. The X1 won't launch with a huge number of titles, but by the end of the first year people know there will be a couple dozen games with plenty of AAA titles, the same isn't true of the Wii U.
Ultimately the hardware cost has boned them, its way to expensive, and its too expensive to be made, and it can't be made hugely cheaper to manufacture without a complete redesign, it can't compete and developers know that, so they've decided to not waste cash making games for it, which will consign it to mostly Nintendo own brand games, which is fine and many will be good. But for the customer that means, similar price, PS4 or X1 with their own exclusives + all multiplatform games and all dev's supporting, and the Wii U, with Nintendo only games, and thats about it. 10 times as much power, much prettier graphics, more media features, better support and WAY WAY WAY more games.
I'd suggest the one and only chance for it is to tank pricing, today and hope it sells enough consoles before the new gen actually launches to persuade some more dev's to make games for it. While they plod along with crap sales which every week just encourage even more people to wait for the new gen, they are making it worse for themselves.
Most sane gamers would choose a new gen box at £250 over a Wii U at £100 at the end of the year.... today a Wii U at £150 vs 360/ps3 with similar deals is potentially doable. That is their other problem 360/ps3 with WAY more games, more support from the industry and cheaper...... There is a reason the two about to be obsoleted consoles have dropped sales pretty significantly, and are still destroying the Wii U in sales.
