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.

We haven’t heard from cheap flat panel CE company VIZIO much since CES earlier this year. The company is back though in the news today with some new HDTVs, priced at between around $1,500 and $1,900.

The new models in the company’s XVT series are the SV420XVT, SV47XVT and VP505XVT. Key features include Silicon Optix REON HQV processing, 30,000:1 contrast Ratio, 1200 nits brightness and 5.1 virtual surround sound. You can get the full scoop on these new flat panel HDTVs after the jump via the full press release.

According to the latest NPD Group report for game sales in May, this is the fourth month in a row that Nintendo has come out on top for the number 1 AND number two spot for console sales. The Nintendo Wii and the handheld Nintendo DS were the two top-selling hardware units for May, 2008.

Nintendo sold over 675,000 Wii consoles in May and almost 453,000 Nintendo DS’s, which would probably explain all the new colors and designs they have been coming out with lately for the DS. Sony’s Playstation 3 followed with a little under 209,000 units sold and Microsoft sold 186,600 Xbox 360 units during the same period.

Nintendo must have had some great feedback about the Metallic Rose Nintendo DS that came in the Nintendogs bundle, or it just didn’t do well and they have a lot of extras without the paw print. Either way the company is launching metallic rose as another standalone color for the lineup of DS’s, not to be confuse with the standard pink.

Some celebs by the names of America Ferrera and Carrie Underwood are going to also help push the latest DS in some commercials starting May 19. No pricing has been released but we would guess this model would be priced the same as the other standalone DS hardware systems.

Microsoft is touting some new statistics trying to gain some additional momentum for the Xbox 360 game console, stating that in the U.S. they have sold 10 million units. There is no refuting that this is quite an accomplishment, but Microsoft is trying to add some more significance to the 10 million unit mark.

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry, ” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.

Grand Theft Auto IV went on sale worldwide today and many retailers such as Best Buy and GameStop opened their doors at midnight last night to meet fans across the country who created long lines to be one of the first to get their hands on a copy and spend the rest of the night playing. The GTA 4 launch from Take Two is expected to see sales that will rival that of last year’s Halo 3 release, with numbers nearing $400 million for around 6 million copies sold around the world.

The Grand Theft Auto 4 game is available for both the Sony Playstation 3 and the XBox 360 which greatly broadens the audience. Some speculate that the launch delay from last October also allowed more people to have time to buy the latest generation of game console and built more anticipation for the launch. Take Two says the delay was due to technical hurdles that needed to be overcome.

We knew it would happen sometime soon and yesterday Microsoft officially discontinued the production of the HD DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360 game console. If you’re one of the estimated 300,000 folks that already own the player Microsoft said they will still continue to support it and uphold the warranty that came with it, but they won’t be selling any new ones. Now that all of the big studios have gone Blu-ray it’s unlikely you’ll be wearing it out anyway without any new movies to play on it.

Microsoft says it doesn’t feel that dumping the HD DVD format will affect its game console sales, but we’re thinking that adding a Blu-ray player like the PS3 has just might help. Microsoft was previously one of the major backers of Toshiba and the HD DVD format before Warner announced they were Blu-ray exclusive and the whole HD DVD camp came tumbling down shortly after.

NPD has released the year-end sales numbers for non-PC video games in 2007 showing record figures for the industry. The year 2007 brought an impressive 43 percent increase in sales compared to 2006 with a total of $17.94 billion.

Game Consoles
The highlights of the year come as no surprise if you’ve been reading our coverage of game console sales with the Nintendo Wii topping the list of most console units sold at 6.29 million. The Wii spent the year at a lower price-point than rival consoles and caught the attention of a wide range of gamers. Behind the Wii in console sales was the Xbox 360 with 4.62 million units sold in 2007, which was helped out a little bit by the wildly popular Halo 3. Next in line was not Sony’s new Playstation 3 but it’s older brother, the Playstation 2. Sony moved 3.97 million PS2 units in 2007 and 2.56 million PS3s.

Amongst the other LCD HDTVs VIZIO was showing off last week at CES, one line which is being called “contemporary styled” is the new VU “Envy” series. It is set to be available sometime this year, though plans are finalized as of yet.

VIZIO said the VU series, which consists of 32-, 37- and 42-inch displays, offers up a side “HD Game Port” for easy connectivity to HDMI enabled devices. VIZIO said these models offer “exceptional video performance with reduced pixel noise and color equalization.”

Get more details on the new VIZIO VU series after the jump.

Amidst all the technology hype going on at CES in Las Vegas this week, Warner Bros. Entertainment somewhat quietly made an announcement with potentially significant implications on the high-def DVD war between Toshiba’s HD DVD and Sony’s Blu-ray disc formats. Warner made an announcement on January 4 that it would release its movies in only the Blu-ray high-definition format, and no longer would offer any of the rival HD DVD formatted discs.

According to Reuters, in talking to Warner Bros Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara the company chose to go the Blu-ray route due to falling DVD says and a “deteriorating U.S. economy”. Tsujihara said the plan was made with the intention of ending the format war and hence ending confusion and split purchases by consumers between the two formats. This move to Blu-ray exclusively is so significant due to the fact that Warner has the industries largest offering of movies and continues to produce big titles, making 5 of the 7 major studios on board with Blu-ray.

The marketing research firm NPD has turned in their analysis of what the top video game titles and consoles were last month and the news is very good for the industry as a whole. Leading the top in sales of new software was Activision’s “Call of Duty 4″ for the Microsoft Xbox 360 which sold an impressive 1.57 million copies. Nintendo’s “Super Mario Galaxy” came in second place and if you combine the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sales for “Assassin’s Creed” it would actually take the silver medal. Not coincidentally Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed” has emerged as the best-selling new IP for games in recent years.

Nintendo’s handheld DS gaming device sold an amazing 1.53 million units in November which was enough to give it the top of the chart for hardware sales. In second place was Nintendo’s Wii gaming console with 981,000 Wiis sold followed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 in third spot with 770,000 units finding homes. Sony moved 577,000 PlayStation Portable to give it fourth place and the price drop in the PS3 convinced 466,000 consumers to go out and buy one of the consoles last month.

Black Friday seems to have had a positive benefit for sluggish sales of not just Sony’s PlayStation 3 but for Nintendo’s Wii system. Over 350,000 Wiis were sold last week, 50,000 more than what was sold the week before that. The Thanksgiving week represents the second-best sales plateau for Nintendo’s latest game console, beaten only by the launch week of the Wii in 2006.

Meanwhile the sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 increased in November 298% over the sales in October. Part of that dramatic spike in PS3s finding their forever homes must be from Sony’s price drop of the $399 40GB unit. The price drop even had its effect in Japan where the Wii has been the dominant next gen gaming console for consumers: for the first time since the PS3’s launch more of the Sony consoles were sold to gamers than Wiis.

Is “Halo 3″ not worthy of play on the Microsoft Xbox 360? According to one California resident, you better bet your Covenant plasma pistol.

A class action suit has been dropped on Bungie, the makers of “Halo 3″ and Microsoft alleging that their hit video game “does not function with the Xbox 360, and to the contrary, attempted use of Halo 3 consistently causes the Xbox 360 to ‘crash,’ ‘freeze,’ or ‘lock up’ while the game is being played.” The suit also states that neither one of the two firms have done enough to fix the problems caused by the bad loads. “Many consumers have reported that the ‘Halo 3′ video game has caused their Xbox video game consoles to crash and remain totally inoperable after playing the ‘Halo 3′ video game,” reads a portion of the document.

Black Friday is fast approaching and although the Nintendo Wii has held strong as the leader in U.S. game console sales for the past year it may not be the case for long. When we first heard Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime talk about Wii console production shortages we suspected it was part of a marketing plan to create a greater demand for the consoles. After all, creating a sense of urgency is one of the most common sales tactics around.

Now that we are into Thanksgiving week and one of the biggest retail shopping days of the year is within site, where are all the Wii’s at? I’m starting to think that this is not part of a marketing scheme and that Nintendo really doesn’t have enough, although it is still surprising to me. The company has had a clear lead in console sales all year long and have been under demand the whole time. We’ve been reporting about the lack of availability as far back as January and Nintendo has had almost a year to catch up.

The Limited Edition Playstation two bundled with SingStar Pop that we told you about a couple of months ago is hitting some stores this weekend and Sony is advising customers to “get ‘em while they’re hot”. The SingStar PS2 pack comes in ceramic white which was previously only available in Japan (maybe we’ll get the white PS3 someday too?) and is the only way you can get your hands on a ceramic white model. It comes packed with the SingStar Pop game and two microphones, retailing for the exptected $149.99. The Playstation blog says that “some” stores will have it this weekend and will reach “everywhere” on November 4.