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Speaking to investors in the firm's third quarter financial briefing, he acknowledged that Wii adoption has peaked, with worldwide lifetime sales currently just shy of 95 million.

"I think that the market is now waiting for a new proposal for home consoles," Iwata said.

"Along with effects from our trade marketing activities in December which mainly focused on the Nintendo 3DS, we were not able to sell the Wii as well as we usually do," he added, referring to the US market. "However, not just the Wii, but the overall performance of home consoles in December was lower than the previous year.

"Usually, the Wii enjoys high sales in December, but last year, even though The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was highly acclaimed, we were not able to expand it sufficiently to our target audience, and although the Wii was the platform which sold the most software in December, we were not able to propose new Nintendo titles to our broad audience.

"In Europe," Iwata continued, "it resulted that out of the home consoles, the Wii sold the most in December; however, we can see that the beginning of the year-end sales was slower and the peak was lower compared to that of the previous year."

Yesterday Iwata reiterated that Wii U will be available in Japan, Europe and the US by the end of 2012.