Sales of Nintendo Wii U during the first launch weekend in Japan failed to beat those of Nintendo Wii U back six years ago. It is unclear whether Nintendo could not supply more consoles to the market, or the demand was lower than anticipated due to competition from other consoles as well as smartphones, tablets and other devices used for gaming these days.

During the launch weekend in Japan, Nintendo sold 308.57 thousand of Wii U game-consoles, according to Famitsu and Enterbrain, reports Games Industry web-site. The predecessor of the product was sold in 371.93 thousand unit quantity, which is marginally better. While the popularity of Wii U seems to be pretty high in Japan, it is obvious that its initial sales are worse compared to sales of the original Wii six years ago across the globe, which may be considered as a bad sign.

It is especially noteworthy that at present sales of Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 are higher than sales of Wii U in the USA. For the long run, this is clearly a bad news for Nintendo as it is well-known that Microsoft and Sony are both set to unleash their next-generation game consoles in 2013.

Nintendo has not yet commented on the sales figures of its latest Wii U game console.

Despite of moderate success on Japan, Wii U has managed to become the company has managed to set the No .7 launch weekend unit sales record in the country among game consoles, according to Famitsu:

• Sony PlayStation 2: 630,552
• Nintendo GameBoy Advanced: 611,504
• Nintendo DS: 441,485
• Nintendo Wii: 371,936
• Nintendo 3DS: 371,326
• Sony PlayStation Vita: 321,407
• Nintendo Wii U: 308,570

Tags: Nintendo, Wii U, Business, Wii