4 million Wii U by March

CVG reports that the latest financial report from Nintendo gives us an idea of how many units of the new Wii U console hope to sell by the end of the fiscal year (March 31). The Japanese company project sales of 10.5 million Wii and Wii U consoles, and key to interpreting that number is how many Wii consoles the company hopes to sell. Last quarter only 710,000 Wii units were sold, based on that and an expected increase during the holidays - it is reasonable that Nintendo count on 6-7 million of Wii consoles to be sold this year, leaving roughly 4 million for Wii U.

Speaking to CVG, Piers-Harding Rolls, lead games analyst for IHS Screen Digest, had the following to say:

"Our assumptions are that Nintendo will ship 6.5 million Wii systems in the current financial year, and about 4 million Wii U systems into retail. As such I think Nintendo's overall target of 10.5m console units is pretty neutral.

"In general, my outlook is that Wii U console sales will not replicate the success of the Wii. Aside from more intense competition from various other connected devices, the Wii U second-screen dynamic is a more complex consumer proposition compared to the Wii and is much harder to market."

CVG also referred to an unnamed source close to the situation saying the European launch of Wii U is planned for late November, but could slip to early December.