Nintendo says Wii shortages hurt planning

"We don't have to remind retailers of the strength we have right now. We are simply making an observation and that reinforces our point quite nicely with retailers," Fils-Aime said.

Nintendo's top priority was to satisfy Wii demand because the issue was an obstacle to future plans, Fils-Aime said.

Unable to accurately forecast how many Wiis will be sold in the coming months, Nintendo is finding it difficult to plan for new games, such as "Wii Fit," an upcoming physical exercise game that uses a pressure-sensitive board.

"We at Nintendo America are focused on getting to the point when any consumer can walk into any of our retailers and find a Wii. Then we can plan, on an ongoing basis, the rest of the business," Fils-Aime said.

He said he had high expectations for Nintendo's recent Wii game "Super Mario Galaxy," which some analysts said had strong but not spectacular first-month sales despite being one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time.

The game sold 1.1 million copies in the United States in November, but fell short of marks set by other blockbuster titles such as Microsoft's "Halo 3," which sold 3.3 million copies in its first month.

"Galaxy will have extremely long life and will have extremely large numbers throughout that entire life," Fils-Aime said. "Mark my words, look in six months and no one will have any remembrance that it 'only' did one million copies in its first month."

(Reporting by Scott Hillis; editing by Richard Chang, Gary Hill)