727 People Are Playing Black Ops II Online On Wii U Now (And 35 Are Playing Madden)

Kotaku - 659 people are playing standard multiplayer and 68 people are playing Zombies mode on Wii U. More than last week.

For comparison, there are 511,529 people playing standard multiplayer and 124,321 people playing Zombies mode in Black Ops II on Xbox 360.

Of course, it's not fair to directly compare a console that launched last week with a console that's been around for six years. So let's do some math.

[legend911]

How does one sell over 500k units and not have at least 5-10k players in Black Ops 2? Sure there isn't a glitch somewhere?

Edit: It has just occurred to me that many of these consoles are gifts, not to be opened until Christmas. Therefore, seems legit.

[Kratos_Kills]

Your right except I think Nintendo fans don't really give a shit about Call of Duty.

[-Mika-]

@ Legend

I agree. That really low. It should be atleast 5-10k like you said. Also I hope your last comment isn't true. If that the case, then it shows what audience is buying the WiiU. If it alot of casuals, then Software sales for this system might be horrible and nintendo might be the only ones profiting off of it.

@ Fenix

i think so. Im having a feeling deep down inside that the WiiU might end up just like the Wii. The sales of the ports and even the temp exclusive Aliens game will flop in sales. I think slowly the core third party titles will be missing from the WiiU and it just going to be filled with casual titles.

[Arius Dion]

Wait Mika
CoD is a hardcore game now?

Any way a week of sales is indicative of what? Not a damn thing. Kotaku's last sentence just proves the entire article is irrelevant, and nonsensical.

[animegamingnerd]

@mika cod has never sell well on nintendo consoles

[Yodagamer]

All the call of dutys on the wii sold a million plus except mw3, but the wii was pretty dead by then. So like i've said on other articles it will take a bit to get an audience, i'll judge it in a month or two.

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

@Marcus_Fenix
Sorry I hate cod but will play that over nintendo land anyday. That's just me though.

are you telling me nintendo fans reject their only proper shooter that will have for months?

[Chidori]

Not exactly true. I remember Modern Warfare Reflex reaching 1 million+ in sales. I'm not sure about Black Ops and MW3, but those million sales prove there was a market out there.

I really doubt anyone bought a Wii U for Call of Duty. Were people expecting 1 million+ in the first week? Seriously...The new Wii U features are really cool and all, but if you wanted Black Ops 2, you probably already have it for ps3/360.

[Kratos_Kills]

@shutupandtakemymoney

Over Nintendoland? There's ZombiU, Assassins Creed 3, Super Mario Bros U, Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, etc. So don't act like Nintendo Land is all you have to play on Wii U besides BO2.

[SuperShyGuy]

Ok look at it like this

The 360 has been out 7 years has 70 million units sold worldwide

CoD: BLOPS 2 has sold 6 million units in 2 weeks, worldwide so that's less then 10% of the console's user base.

Of that 6 million 636,000 are playing online around 11%

Now the Wii U has been released in one region and sold 400,000 in one week no word on how may units of CoD sold.

Lets go with 7K CoD units, it is only one week after all. 10% of that would be 700.

At least this is how I see it.

Kotaku making a big deal out of nothing

@Mika - facepalm

[Rhythmattic]

+ 1 ..... What you said,

[animegamingnerd]

it's kotaku they have some of the dumbest articles ever

[lilbroRx]

Absolutely well said. Too bad journalist can't do rational mathematics.

[legend911]

What you said. :D

[Heavenly King]

the 400K are units sold to the store not to the users

[Beastforlifenoob]

Very true actual units sold will be more like 300-350K

[neogeo]

It's because they are still downloading the update:)

[YoungPlex]

Well let's see, the w Wii Ujust came out and I'm betting that at least a quarter will be Christmas gifts, but the community is in fact growing by the day. There are so many games, apps, and features out, that people are too busy trying them out or just busy beating the campaigns. Every day I see the numbers growing, for example yesterday on miiverse COD had around 6.5k people, today it's at 10k people, same thing with AC:III. I have people constantly asking me to play MP but I don't want to until I finish the story. I'm sure that I'm not the only person that's doing this. This is no different than any other console that launched in the past, and with time passing by, there's no doubt in my mind that the online community will begin to shine.
Off topic: I'm typing this on the Wii U web browser and believe it or not, it's a damn good browser! Love the fact that I could have a smoke outside with this tablet, check up on news, browse miiverse, chat with friends, or continue playing while I have a cigarette, all on the same device... The Wii U has some really cool features!

[jmc8888]

My pre-order doesn't come until Tuesday, so you also have a situation where pre-ordered consoles still aren't in the hands of their owners, and like you said, also lots of the consoles are gifts.

Plus again, the first day or two people are going to be busy updating and messing around, or playing the single player first.

Not to mention all the other titles that came out that is consuming their time. So they may have 3-6 games taking up their time on a new console. Whereas people that bought it on the other systems had 0-1 other games taking up their time. PLUS you have a situation where they had the game for a few extra weeks to sell copies, with a much larger pool of consoles.

The numbers are quite low, but they should continue to rise for quite some time. This is one of those games where the gaming population is going to just keep growing for months. Typical of new consoles.

Remember when everyone played Perfect Dark Zero because there were few alternatives on the 360? I miss that slicing boomerang thing lol.

I will also agree that with Nintendo fans, a portion (let's not make it out to be too big) aren't that into FPS's. So you might have a penetration rate a bit below that of the other consoles, at least initially, but probably continually. So maybe out of every 100 people, there are 5-10 people less that buy FPS's.

So if xbox gets 250,000 people out of 2 million to buy Black OPS 2 (just a guess), you might need 2.1-2.2 million people to sell 250,000 units. Of course these are all just rough numbers, it's the concept I'm bringing up mostly.

[GraveLord]

They actually only sold 400k, and most of those people are playing Super Mario or Nintendo Land. Obviously.

3rd party games don't sell on Nintendo systems, this has been proven time and time again.

[fatstarr]

you clearly don't know anything.

500k wiiu owners

cut that into 3

NEETS KIDS and Working Adults

NEETS can play all day 166k total
Kids Restricted to certain times 166k total
Working adults Restricted to certain times 166k total

Focus on Only Neets
of the 166k total
only some bought Blackops 2 and these sports games
and they arent all playing it at once, and they are playng different games, also its a nintendo console most dont know of the existance of the online mode.
the console just came out

and Most neets that have a wiiu probably have a ps3 and 360 with blackops for that console.

Ports wont get as much love on a late console because people already have the games or dont see it as a reasonable purchase at the time.

check the online for the main games on wiiu and Im sure you will see 5k-20k online

[neogeo]

WTF is a neet?

[fatstarr]

@neogeo

"not in education, employment, or training"
basically people that sit at home on the internet and play video games all day. and dont do anything.

[LOL_WUT]

Well it's better than nothing right? I wonder how many are playing that new Mario game?

[YoungPlex]

Around 40 or 50k last I checked.

[Qrphe]

If Miiverse is indicative of sales, the Mario game was the best-selling game out of all of them, followed by NintendoLand then ZombiU (not sure about the last one).

[CaptainYesterday]

I'm assuming that Zombie U and NSMBU are the most played Wii U games right now and maybe Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

[Nes_Daze]

Think about how much Black Ops 2 sold on Xbox360, then on PS3, and lastly PC, now unless you only have a WiiU, or are a casual, would you really get Black Ops 2 on a console with very, very few amount of COD players. IDk, I just think the WiiU will support more third party games, but will still do what the Wii PRIMARILY did, and that is support the casuals.

[stragomccloud]

Pretty sure the system wasn't designed with Casuals in mind. Early testing shows that the game pad and even the "casual" games for the system are proving too difficult/vexing for casual gamers.

[Nes_Daze]

It was designed for both sides, keeping the innovation and attraction the Wii had with its "innovation", while adding third party support for core gamers. Still, the outcome is mediocre imo.

[jmc8888]

I did. Have been getting it on 360 every year, and while my 360 is quite wonky and freezes a lot, CoD has actually ran quite well and caused less flake outs then other games.

That said, to experience it on a new console with the gamepad, well, I wanted that experience. Same price, and from the game reviews, it doesn't suffer from screen tearing, which I absolutely hate (hate tearing ofc). Which of course I didn't know about at the time of the pre-order but you knew it had a chance to be the best version, and may be. Or if not, still be good enough. Worth a shot. Nothing ventured, nothing gained lol.

[thezeldadoth]

does kotaku have anything else to write about other than nintendo bashing? probably not, they are some of the worst gaming journalists i've ever read

[BaconBits]

I was somewhat surprised to see so few playing on the weekend. the only game in BLOPS 2 was team death match. there were 0 playing the other modes - even domination which usually has lots on other consoles. I could not even try ground war since there was no one else playing. I kind of wish I got it on xbox but I am sure it will improve. The two screen multi player was a selling point for me but the frame rate takes a big hit. Smooth game play is what I like about COD games.

[stragomccloud]

I think they are looking at non peak times. Generally on my mii plaza I see around 15,000 people playing BLOPS2 at any given time.

[gpturbo81]

991 in blops2

[ylwzx3]

The problem is that COD came out before the Wii launched so a majority have already purchased it.

[Sp1d3ynut]

Hope they don't crash the servers. ;)

[black911]

Nintendo is mario & zelda

[thegamingadvisory21]

Has anyone notice that the game came out last month, for 360 and ps3. Also the system is only about a week old with most of them being bought as gifts so what do you expect. Yea i still say its a low number but COD is beloved on those systems and many will buy it there first. Give it till after christmas

[Dead_by_Dawn]

The game came out before the wii u. Many gamers had been dead set on playing it they're ps3 and xbox, does kotaku actually think people we're gonna wait for the wii u version. This article is retarded, give it some time and more people will buy it eventually, but I don't expect it to even reach the amount gamers playing on ps3 and xbox