Nintendo Predicts 35 Million Wii In U.S. By 2012

In a new interview with the Bloomberg news service, George Harrison, Nintendo of America senior vice president of marketing and corporate communication, has predicted that the company will sell as many as 35 million Wii console in the US by 2011 or 2012. The best selling console ever in the U.S. is currently Sony's PlayStation 2, with 38.2 million units sold in the territory, and a total of 115.4 million sold worldwide, as of December 31st, 2006. Currently, 2.5 million Wii consoles have been sold in the U.S. since November, with the console having been supply constrained ever since launch. The article also quotes NPD hardware sales totals, which put the Xbox 360 sales at 5.4 million in the U.S. since November 2005, and the PlayStation 3 at 1.3 million since November 2006. "Demand is much greater than we anticipated," Harrison said. "A year ago no one thought we would be in this position." While confirming that the company is increasing Wii production in China, Harrison also indicated that Nintendo had no plans to decrease the current sales price of the Wii. Harrison also suggested that there are no plans to upgrade the console in any way, saying that its graphical inferiority to its rivals was not an issue, and that Nintendo would continue to attract current non-gamers. Indeed, by suggesting that the console’s lifetime would end in 2011 or 2012, Harrison appears to rule out the suggestions of some analysts that the Wii will have a purposefully short shelf life compared to other consoles due to its graphical capabilities. "We're starting to see in the performance of the PS3 and Xbox 360 that that's not necessarily motivating the market the way it used to," said Harrison. "So we're going to start work on future technology only when we believe it's necessary." Nintendo is currently holding a media event in the U.S., at which Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has suggested that third party Wii software sales are exceeding Nintendo’s own.