Wii U sells 890,000 units in U.S. in first six weeks, beating Wii’s record — January 10, 2013

Nintendo said today it has sold more than 890,000 Wii U game consoles to date in the U.S.

The new game console debuted on Nov. 18 and it sold more units than the original Wii sold in its first holiday season in 2006. After 41 days on the market, the Wii U sold more than $300 million worth of hardware in the U.S. That beats sales of the Wii by $30 million for the comparable period in its first season.

In December, the Wii U sold 470,000 units.

“While the Wii launch established new benchmarks in the United States, Wii U has surpassed its predecessor in perhaps the most important category: revenue generation,” Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, said in a statement. “The demand for the Deluxe SKU, which was essentially sold out at retail this holiday, and the strong attach rate of New Super Mario Bros. U, shows that we have the value and the games to drive momentum in 2013. We look forward to offering great new experiences and bringing smiles to millions of new faces throughout the year.”

Nintendo sold more than 2.65 million hardware units in the U.S. in the month of December. The Japanese company said that 2012 marked the 11th consecutive year that Nintendo has sold at least 8 million hardware units in the U.S.

The New Super Mario Bros. U has now sold more than 580,000 units, an attach rate of more than 65 percent. The Nintendo 3DS portable sold more than 1.25 million units in December and has sold 7.7 million units in the U.S. to date. The Wii sold 475,000 units in December, outselling the Wii U, and it has sold more than 40.8 million units to date.

Ubisoft’s Just Dance 3 became the tenth Wii title to sell more than 5 million units life to date.

Filed under: Games