Satoru Iwata remarks on US holiday sales of new console, says system is "selling steadily"; two-SKU launch has been "challenge."

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told Reuters in a new interview that Wii U sales in the United States during the ever-important holiday period could not match the original Wii in 2006, but were "not bad."

"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 did not divulge specific holiday season Wii U sales figures, nor did he provide a forecast for the console. Nintendo announced in October that it hoped to sell 5.5 million Wii U consoles by the end of March 2013.

The console went on sale in the United States November 18, selling more than 400,000 units during its first week, a period that included the Black Friday shopping bonanza. During the Wii U's Japanese launch weekend in December, more than 308,000 systems were sold in the region.

Iwata also remarked on Nintendo's first-ever two-SKU system launch, saying the 32GB $350 Wii U Deluxe model proved far more popular than the 8GB $300 version, which left significant stock on shelves and consumer headaches.

"It was the first time Nintendo released two models of the game console at the same time...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," Iwata said.

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