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The Wii U is “selling steadily”, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has claimed, describing sales of the console over the Christmas period as “not bad”.
“At the end of the Christmas season, it wasn’t as though stores in the US had no Wii U left in stock, as it was when Wii was first sold in that popular boom,” Iwata told news agency Reuters. “But sales are not bad, and I feel it’s selling steadily”.
Despite the console being readily available in stores, Iwata believes that sales may have been affected by the low availability of Premium units, the Wii U version “many people wanted”.
“It was the first time Nintendo released two models of the game console at the same time…” Iwata continued, “and I believe there was a challenge with balancing this. Specifically, inventory levels for the premium, deluxe package was unbalanced as many people wanted that version and couldn’t find it.”
Wii U sold 40,000 units in its opening week in the UK, with 300,000 and 400,000 units of the console being sold in Japan and North America respectively within the same time period.
The Premium Wii U pack accounted for 60 per cent of the hardware’s sales in the UK, with only 10 per cent of early adopters opting for the cheaper Wii U Basic.
Sales figures for the console over the Christmas period have yet to be revealed.
Source: Reuters
