Wii U sells 890,000 units in U.S. in first six weeks

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

The new game console debuted on Nov. 18 and sold more units than the original Wii did in its first holiday season in 2006. Nintendo sold more than $300 million worth of Wii U hardware in the U.S after 41 days on the market. That beats sales of the Wii by $30 million for the comparable period in its first season, Nintendo said. However, the Wii U is priced higher than the original Wii, so the unit sales may not actually be better.

In December alone, Nintendo sold 470,000 Wii U systems.

“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, a Nintendo of America’s executive vice president, 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 show 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. Nintendo sold more than 1.25 million units of the Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming machine in December and sold 7.7 million units in the U.S. to date. Nintendo sold 475,000 units of the Wii in December, outselling the Wii U, and more than 40.8 million units to date in the U.S.

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