Kyoto, Japan - Nintendo is projecting sales of up to 35 million next-generation Wii video game consoles in the U.S. by 2011 or 2012, Bloomberg reported.

The company has so far sold 2.5 million of the devices in the U.S., compared with 1.3 million in sales for Sony's PlayStation 3; Microsoft's Xbox 360, released in 2005, has sold 5.4 million units.

Sony's PlayStation 2 is the all-time leader, having sold 38.2 million units in the U.S.

"Demand is much greater than we anticipated,'' Nintendo head of marketing George Harrison told Bloomberg.

"A year ago no one thought we would be in this position.''

The company credited its focus on games and technology that appeal to a wider audience, rather than on chips or graphics, for the Wii's success.

"We're starting to see in the performance of the PS3 and Xbox 360 that that's not necessarily motivating the market the way it used to,'' Harrison added. "So we're going to start work on future technology only when we believe it's necessary.''

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http://tinyurl.com/2gp3um (Bloomberg)