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Wii U Launch Days Away, Said To Be In High Demand

Wii U is set to hit stores in North America in four days and will start a new era for the Japanese company Nintendo.

Early reports indicate the new hardware is "selling out incredibly quick."

Wii U will be introducted on Sunday. Prices start $300 in the U.S. with the deluxe model costing $349.

"All I can say is that the response has been phenomenal and we're getting, especially in the higher priced deluxe set, that one's selling out incredibly quickly," Nintendo's North American executive vice president of sales Scott Moffitt told gamesindustry.biz.. "That seems to indicate that the pricing's in a good spot and the proof is in the consumer response,"

When Nintendo's Wii console launched in 2006, there weren't enough to meet demand, but Moffitt assures that the Wii U will have no such problem.

"Certainly we've seen brisk pre-sales and that the phone calls have been coming into our headquarters for quite a while now asking for more and so we do expect high demand," he said. "But I can tell you this - on opening week we will have more systems on hand for the Wii U than we did for the launch of Wii. And, second, our replenishments will be more frequent this holiday time than during the Wii launch."

Nintendo's financial problems have been well publicized, particularly after the the company announced it was going to operate at loss for its new game system earlier this year.

"Manufacturing costs are expensive, and we priced the machine at a level customers would accept," senior managing director of Nintendo Yoshiro Mori said at a press conference. "It's important for us to develop a healthy business next fiscal year by combining sales of hardware and software."

Despite the bleak outlook earlier in the year, Nintendo hopes its new console can change the fortune of the company.

Wii U Unboxing (IGN)

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