Asda removes Nintendo's Wii U from stores

Sales of Nintendo's flagship games console have fallen short of targets

Asda says it will no longer sell Nintendo's Wii U games console in its stores.

Customers wanting to buy the machine from the supermarket can still order it online and have it delivered to their homes or to a local store for pick-up.

Asda said rival consoles, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, would still be sold in-store.

This is despite the fact that the Wii U is the newest of the devices having only been launched in November.

The news comes as the Japanese firm revealed that it sold 160,000 Wii U consoles worldwide in its April-to-June quarter - a drop of more than 50% on the previous period.

The device was actually outsold by the six-year-old original Wii which shifted 210,000 units.

Delayed games

The Wii U had been available in about 100 of Asda's 568 stores, but a spokesman for the Wal-Mart owned chain denied the withdrawal was a sign of waning confidence in Nintendo.

"We continue to support Nintendo as a partner," he said

He added that Asda had recently expanded the space allocated to sell Nintendo's 3DS XL and games for the handheld console.

In May, games giant EA said it had stopped developing new games for the Wii U, and Nintendo's company results revealed that sales targets for the console had fallen well below expectations.

Nintendo has blamed disappointing sales on the delayed release of key games, but says new titles, such as a 3D version of the long-running Super Mario series expected this Christmas, should help revive the Wii U's fortunes.

In its latest earnings statement the firm left its Wii U sales forecast unchanged, predicting nine million of the devices would be sold over its current financial year.