In an interview with CNBC President has said that his company worked on a new handheld, but scrapped it.

The Ninty boss said that this was consistent with Nintendo's and that this had been done before.

"In the history of Nintendo, there are several such examples," he explained. "But when we are launching new hardware, the most important is thing is to sustain the momentum. If introducing new won't do anything to do that, well"

The rejected project has happened in the last three years, but no details have been given about the cancelled product.

By Jason Cartwright