Nintendo Europe's Laurent Fischer has apologized for his statement publicized earlier this week, in which the marketing director said that the only Wii owners that encounter problems with the console's 512MB of internal storage are "geeks and otaku."

"I have huge respect for those who, like me, share a common passion for Nintendo and want to make it clear that I would never use and I didn't use this terminology in such a context or way to cause offense," he told videogaming247.

He added, "I regret that this misunderstanding has created such offense and disappointment within the community."

Fischer's comments sparked outrage in Nintendo's consumer community, which has been long awaiting a solution to the Wii's limited 512MB of internal storage, expandable via SD cards.

Over 220 Virtual Console and 15 WiiWare titles have been released in North America since the system's debut, with some titles taking up as much as 32MB of the Wii's internal storage space per individual download.