Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, recently gave his impressions on the Wii U’s early sales figures.

“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. But sales are not bad, and I feel it’s selling steadily.”

At least he is being honest about comparing the system to the meteoric start of the Wii back in 2006. Because it was near impossible to find a Wii until well into the new year whereas I just saw Wii U Deluxe Sets out in the wild this past weekend. Iwata goes on to explain that the sales may also be because of the company introducing two console sets.

“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.”

Look, I think Nintendo is realistic about how the Wii U is going to sell. The original Wii was one of those concepts that hit at the exact right time with its motion controller and has gone on to sell over 100 million units. The Wii U is going to be a much harder sell but can keep up with the next generation given that Nintendo announces some killer apps that will be definite system sellers (i.e. Zelda or new 3D Mario).