Nintendo President Comments on Wii U Sales

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has commented on Wii U’s sales through the end of 2012. In an interview with Reuters, Iwata said Wii U is “selling steadily” but that by the end of the year it was still short of the original Wii's launch.

"At the end of the Christmas season, it wasn't as though stores in the U.S. had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom,” Iwata said. “But sales are not bad, and I feel it's selling steadily.”

Iwata didn’t provide the exact number of systems sold, but Reuters notes that Nintendo sold 638,339 Wii U consoles in Japan between December 8 and 30. Added to the 400,000 units sold in America in November, worldwide sales have surpassed one million units to date. Back in October, Iwata said he hopes to sell 5.5 million by the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year in March.

Iwata also addressed the challenge of selling two versions of Wii U, the Deluxe and Basic packages. "It was the first time Nintendo released two models of the game console at the same time,” he said, “and I believe there was a challenge with balancing this. Specifically, inventory levels for the [Deluxe] package was unbalanced as many people wanted that version and couldn't find it.”

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.