Nintendo knows all about supply and demand and how to work the system. There is high demand for Nintendo’s games, so much so that often times third-party game sales on Nintendo’s consoles suffer at the hands of first-party titles.

Nintendo, in a move to avoid hurting it’s third party titles, has decided that they will only decide on the dates of popular first party releases after they know the release plans of other companies’ games. That has to be good news to third party developers.

While the Xbox 360 is still outselling the PS3 in the US, new data from Strategy Analytics shows that globally, Sony’s console reached 43.4 million at the end of 2010, compared to 42.9 million for Microsoft’s system. Take that Xbox.

In comparison, the Wii’s worldwide installed base was 75.5 million at the end of last year. If you have been paying attention, global demand for Sony’s PS3 has exceeded that of the Xbox 360 for the past two years, and there’s no reason to think it will stop this year. Microsoft needs to keep innovating and build on the success of the Kinect to compete.

Some gamers have been complaining about headaches and eyestrain when playing the new 3DS console. It seems like it is only a few users right now who are having trouble playing games on the console comfortably. But Nintendo’s UK PR head Rob Saunders says that the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and that a risk of discomfort comes with the territory when you are talking 3D content.

Like with any activity that is strenuous on the eyes, he advises that people take breaks. Maybe they could use that break time to go outside and enjoy some nature. Watch a butterfly glide on the breeze, if you know what such a creature is. Feel the warm sun on your pale gamer skin. Whatever. Just don’t stare at a tiny screen all day and you should be fine.

If you were hoping to import Japanese games for your US Nintendo 3DS, this is bad news. If you want to play imports, you will have to buy a foreign system since a 3DS from one territory will not play games from another. It won’t even show up in the menu.

This is confirmed for the Japanese version so it is safe to assume that the US version will work the same. To some this is not a deal-breaker, but to others this is a big issue. If you want to play foreign games, you’ll need a 3DS from the same country.

You know that slider on the side of the 3DS? It adjusts the 3D aspect to the user’s preference. And although the 3DS’ screen doesn’t force you to wear glasses, it does have to be held at just the right angle to get the most out of the 3D effect. And there are many of us who would just want to use it for plain old 2D gaming. So it’s good to know that Nintendo now says that no game should require 3D as part of its gameplay mechanics. And frankly that’s just a good rule of thumb for making a good game if you ask us.

Hideki Konno, one of Nintendo’s producers says that the company wants all of its 3DS games to be playable in 2D, reducing the 3D aspect to an aesthetic enhancement. Some might feel ripped off, but what did you expect? Nintendo wants to please the mass market, otherwise people will soon tire of the 3DS, like they did with the Wii. Novelties wear off quickly.

The Nintendo 3DS launches next week and now there are rumors that the company may focus on a replacement for the Wii. Frank Gibeau, label head at EA Games, said in a chat with IndustryGamers that he was aware of a follow-up coming. The device is unknown and wasn’t confirmed, but it is a fair bet that it will have have HD support, rivaling competitors from Microsoft and Sony.

Nintendo has been one of the most conservative console makers especially during this generation of console. The Wii was mostly built using faster but nearly identical processors as the GameCube. The company has often refused to discuss the possibility of a next-gen console as long as sales continued to dominate, but sales are not what they once were and it would seem that the time is right.

Japanese retailer Enterking has announced that it will not accept Nintendo 3DS gaming consoles that have been used with a hacked memory card for trade-in. So how will the retailer will know? Simple. Because the portable gaming console logs all activity, which can then be retrieved by those in the industry who know how. It is an attempt by Nintendo to deter pirates.

The most common card used is the R4 and some Japanese hackers can already install illegal DS ROMS but not games. Since the system keeps track of any and all hacks and has a Wi-Fi connection, it could also let Nintendo block pirated devices from accessing online services and games.

We’ve all been waiting for Killzone 3 to arrive. The game looks amazing and should outdo Killzone 2 in sales and overall awesomeness. But now 41.4GB worth of files have been leaked to Torrent sites containing Guerrilla Games’ upcoming first-person shooter for the PlayStation 3.

The game isn’t due to be released until Feb. 22nd. That’s a problem obviously. But it isn’t all bad news for Sony. Only hacked PS3 consoles will be able to play the game. The 41.4GB file contains the European version of the game and a rumored second non-3D version is making the rounds at roughly half the size.

Despite a small 6% dip in quarterly sales year-over-year, “due to a decrease in sales in the game business resulting primarily from unfavorable foreign exchange rates,” Sony’s Networked Products & Services group, which houses the PlayStation brand, managed to post ¥45.7 billion (about $564 million) in profits for the third quarter period, which ended December 31. That’s a 135% gain over the prior-year’s period.

Even though quarterly sales of the PlayStation 3 and PSP have lagged year-over-year, Sony is predicting 15 million PS3 consoles sold for the fiscal year, compared to 13 million for the year prior. This has a lot to do with “cost reductions” on the PS3 and significant gains in PlayStation 3 software sales. So things are looking great for the PS3 right now. As for the PSP and PS2, not so much.

We finally have the US launch details of the Nintendo 3DS. The price is $249.99 and the release date is March 27, while Europeans will get it on March 25. Nintendo says that “30+” games will be available in the US during the launch, with more than 25 in Europe.

Europeans will have some exclusive 3D video content like sports footage and episodes of Shaun the Sheep. Not sure if we are getting anything exclusive or not. We will know soon enough.

Despite a poor economy leading to poorer sales than the company was used too, Nintendo has announced that it still ended up with the best selling gaming systems of 2010 according to numbers from the NPD Group. The Wii was the best selling game console for the year with 7 million units sold in2010. Not bad at all.

Likewise, the DS was the best selling portable with 8.5 million sold in 2010. Nintendo had great sales during the holiday season, with some impressive sales numbers in December to help it along.

Speculation is that Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS portable 3D gaming handheld could be powered by Marvell. Marvell co-founder Sehat Sutardja dropped some hints during their quarterly earnings call. He says that Marvell chips will soon be used to power a game console.

“Approximately 15% of the sequential increase (in quarterly sales) was due to the initial production revenue from our ARMADA application processors, primarily as a result of a major customer preparing to launch a new gaming platform,”

Nintendo must be pretty happy with the news that the Wii video game console has now sold 30 million units in the US alone. That figure was achieved in just 45 months, making it the fastest-selling console in the history of the industry. Wow.

It also hit the milestone 15 months faster than the next best-selling console. Obviously this is due to the Wii’s innovative gaming experience, even if some consoles do end up collecting dust after a few months when the novelty wears off.

People like their consoles like they like their supermodels, thin and puking. Well, thin anyway. With two nice round buttons in front. But nevermind that. The newly launched Xbox 360 has sold 15,000 units in Japan in the first four days. The strong sales were in addition to 2,370 of the previous generation version of the games console. The week before the release saw only 2,060 Xbox units of any kind moved.

Sales were helped by the launch of Capcom’s top-selling game, Monster Hunter Frontier Online. In Japan the new slim console costs $339 while the previous Elite version dropped to $282.

When the Nintendo Wii was released, people called it gimmicky with it’s motion controller, but in spite of that, the console has done really well. But the fact that it’s aging and doesn’t have many grown-up games may be shortening it’s life as a console.

According to Nintendo’s fiscal report, the company sold 20.53 million Wii consoles last year, which is a 21 percent drop from the 25.95 million from the previous year. However this is still Nintendo’s third-best year ever. Will sales of the Wii pick up? I’m not seeing it.