Nintendo expects to sell 35 million Wiis in US

Nintendo's George Harrison has said the company is targeting sales of 35 million Wiis in the US, close to the 38.2 million PS2s sold by Sony in the region.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Harrison, senior vice president of marketing at Nintendo of America, said the ambitious target would be met by 2011 or 2012.

"Demand is much greater than we anticipated," he said. "A year ago no one thought we would be in this position."

The Wii was launched in the US late last year. This means Nintendo expects its new console to perform as well as, or even better than than the PS2, which saw its North American launch in October 2000.

Nintendo has sold almost twice as many Wiis as Sony has PS3s in the US since their near-simultaneous launches. The tallies currently stand at 2.5 million and 1.3 million respectively. Xbox 360 has reached a total of 5.4 million units sold since its launch a year earlier.

Harrison said Nintendo doesn't feel under pressure to start work on a more technically advanced console, despite the greater processing power of the Wii's competition.

"We're starting to see in the performance of the PS3 and Xbox 360 that that's not necessarily motivating the market the way it used to," he said. "So we're going to start work on future technology only when we believe it's necessary."

Harrison also said Nintendo was increasing production of Wiis at its Chinese factories in order to meet demand for the console. Demand for the Wii is currently outstripping supply in every market.