Nintendo president Satoru Iwata commented on the sales figures for the company's Wii U, which he said were steady, but not as strong as the company's previous console, the Wii.
In an interview with Reuters, Iwata said Wii U is "selling steadily" but that by so far it has fallen short of its predecessor, the Wii's sales figure.
"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 told Reuters that Nintendo must focus on developing software for its handheld 3DS to draw in new gamers and increase the sales figures for the Wii U as the company faces competition from mobile devices.
Iwata di not provide exact sale totals for the Wii U, but Reuters noted that the company sold 638,339 Wii U consoles in Japan between Dec. 8 and 30. Nintendo said in October it aimed to sell 5.5 million Wii U devices by the end of its fiscal year in March.
Iwata acknowledged the challenge of selling two versions of the new console, the Deluxe and Basic packages. The premium package sold out in more places, while the basic and cheaper model stalled.
"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."
The Wii U launched on Nov. 18 in North America, Nov. 30 in Europe and Australia and Dec. 8 in Japan. The system features video content from Netflix and Hulu, and has a gaming social network called Miiverse, which allows users to comment on games and share strategies.
The system is available in two versions: Basic and Deluxe. The Basic version is white-colored and comes with 8 GB of internal Flash storage for $299.99. The "Deluxe" black-colored version comes with 32 GB of Flash storage, the in-box game Nintendo Land, a stand and docks for $349.99.
Check out our review round up for New Super Mario Bros. U here and Nintendo Land here. Watch Nintendo's trailer explaining the TVii application below...
