Nintendo admits that the volume of resources required to make high-definition games took it by surprise, and that has delayed its production of first-party titles.

In a recent investor call, Nintendo creative director Shigeru Miyamoto said that development for the Wii U took about twice as many workers compared to development for the Wii.

“We may have underestimated the scale of this change and, as a result, the overall software development took more time than originally anticipated just as we tried to polish the software at the completion phase of development,” he said.

“However, we are almost out of this phase, and we are also trying to create something unique utilizing an easier development approach called ‘Nintendo Web Framework’.”

A lack of first-party games is only one of the Wii U’s problems: its much-touted third-party support is also drying up, with Ubisoft and EA insisting they see higher console sales numbers before they develop any more games for it.