The unthinkable has happened. For the first time in 16 months, sales of the PS3 in Japan jumped 80% in the last five weeks of March compared to a year ago. At the same time, demand for the Wii went down by almost 63% to 99,335.

You can chalk up at least part of this to the release of a few new popular games like Resident Evil 5. Which helped up the PS3′s sales figures beyond the Wii’s for the first time since November a few years ago. It should also be noted that nearly everyone in Japan seems to already own a Wii.

I am a big fan of video games and play both console and PC games. One of the coolest games for consoles so far has been Guitar Hero. Music games are huge right now and are helping bands and record labels sell tunes at a time when record sales are dropping.

Sony’s PlayStation Home was announced a long time ago and was ultimately delayed repeatedly before it finally launched last year. Part of PS Home is different realms that are branded with different games where fans can meet up. Activision has announced that the Guitar Hero Backstage area has now opened.

Whether there’s room for a new next gen console or not, Zeebo is squeezing it’s way into the lineup. And since there’s no way it would stand out in the US or Japan, they’ve decided on Brazil. The idea is to get into developing countries that maybe Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have ignored.

Getting your console positioned in the right country is one thing, but you need to have support from the game publishers. Good thing Zeebo has managed to get some big names now. EA Mobile, Namco Networks, THQ, and PopCap have all signed on to support the Zeebo.

We love video games around here. Whether we’re playing the Xbox 360, the PS3 or even an old Atari 2600. We thought we would take a look at the history of gaming consoles from 1972 to the present. You grew up with the vintage consoles, you play the new ones, so take a walk down memory lane and revisit all your favorites from the massive list below.

When it comes to pure portable gaming consoles there are two choices — the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS. You can play games on other devices on the go, like the iPhone and iPod touch, but the DS and PSP are the only dedicated portable gaming systems.

Nintendo has announced that it has now shipped 100 million Nintendo DS consoles since the systems were introduced. The original DS launched in 2004 and offered dual screens and voice recognition, something not offered on other portable consoles.

Each time a new Halo game launches sales records are set. In fact, the last time a Halo game launched the title went on to make more money than many of the year’s biggest movies. I still can’t believe that they pulled the plug on the Halo feature film… dumb asses.

GameStop announced that it would be hosting midnight launch events at many of its locations around the country. The festivities will kick off at most locations at 10pm on Monday March 2 and will include Halo 3 tournaments, Warthog races, character dress up contests and trivia challenges.

An analyst with Janco, Mike Hickey, says that a major price cut for the PS3 could be on the way in the next few days. According to Hickey (Who I’m assuming has no marks on his neck) the price drop needs to be at least $100 to get retail sales moving again.

If it doesn’t happen, Sony console sales are expected to continue to decline. This wouldn’t be a huge surprise, but we’ll have to see what happens.

In my home, we have a Wii, Xbox, and PS3 so most of my son’s friends end up over here playing video games after school. The one console that all of them were hoping for last Christmas was the Wii. It seems they weren’t alone in their dreams of a Wii.

Nintendo is talking up the numbers just released by the NPD Group that talk about the gaming market in 2008. According to NPD, the Nintendo Wii and DS game systems were the most popular systems, by a long way, during 2008.

This is hardly shocking news, but according to the Wall Street Journal, both Nintendo’s Wii and the Xbox 360 clobbered the PS3 in holiday sales. U.S. sales fell nine percent from this month last year. During the same period, sales doubled for the Wii and were up eight percent for the Xbox 360.

That’s what happens when you fail to cut prices on your system, and the lack of exclusive game titles didn’t help either. Not to mention a bunch of inexpensive Blu-ray players. The end result is that the PS3 was the least attractive option for buyers. Apparently, it’s not even fit to roast a decent weiner.

NVIDIA is the biggest name in discrete video card sales. It has among its wares some of the best performing video cards available. The graphics giant purchased Ageia and gained from the buy PhysX technology that it has been enabling on its GPUs and peddling to game developers.

Over the last few weeks, some of the biggest game publishers in the world have licensed NVIDIA’s PhysX technology including EA. EA showed footage of its new title Mirror’s Edge with PhysX enabled and it looked like a different game.

My son is one of the proudest kids in the neighborhood when it comes to video games since we have a Wii, PS3, and an Xbox (all for work naturally). The thing most of the kids want to play is the Wii and many of his friends are asking Santa for a Wii this Christmas.

The catch is that the Wii is still notoriously hard to find, despite the fact that Nintendo is making more of the consoles this holiday season than it did last year. Nintendo has announced that it has set US sales records with its Wii and DS game systems.

Last weekend I downloaded the Mirror’s Edge demo for my PS3 and spent a bit of time playing. The game is very cool and fun. You are a free runner that moves atop the buildings in a massive city delivering messages.

To get from one place to the other you have to run, jump, and fight your way there across rooftops. The game has a very cool premise and offers very original gameplay. EA announced this week that it has shipped Mirror’s Edge to retailers worldwide.

The people from CEA are the group behind the geek fantasia that is CES. CEA is into more than putting together one of the greatest displays of geek debauchery on the planet, it also does things like predict holiday electronics sales.

You might expect this holiday season to be slow with the sluggish economy around the world. According to the CEA, despite the economy shipments for Q4 2008 are expected to grow by 3.5% compared to Q4 2007 shipments.

September games sales actually showed the first decline since March of 2006 according to the NPD Group, however things are still not looking too tough for the gaming industry. September of 2007 saw a huge hike in sales due to the release of Halo 3 which is contrasted by slightly lower sales this last September of 2008.

The drop is sales was not the only change of events for September, either. Due to the price cut of the Xbox 360 models, Microsoft saw a significantly noticeable boost in sales for its console from 195k units sold in August, to 347k units sold in September of this year, bringing it ahead of Sony’s PS3. Microsoft dropped the price to $50 less than the Wii and half of what the PS3 costs, making it the least expensive current-generation game console on the market.

Nintendo’s Wii has now surpassed the Xbox 360 as the leading console in U.S. homes among the latest generation of video-game players. As of June, U.S. consumers bought nearly 10.9 million Wii consoles since it’s introduction, which makes Nintendo top console dog. In fact, the Wii has been the top-selling console in all but one month in the U.S. since it launched, according to research firm NPD Group Inc.

Nintendo is projecting that worldwide, the Wii’s annual sales will surpass the number of consoles that Sony sells for the first time this fiscal year. The formula seems pretty straightforward. Get people actually in the game with motion control and Miis, appeal to all ages and keep the price somewhat reasonable.