Remember when we told you last week that “Halo 3″ made a stunning $170 million dollars worth of sales on its release day? Microsoft is back to blow its trumpet again: the first week of “Halo 3″ sales made the company $300 million dollars. Keep in mind that this game is only available for a single video game console, the Xbox 360. That could be why sales of the 360 have more than doubled in the past week as people open their wallets and purses to jump on the Master Chief bandwagon.

Since its launch last November the Nintendo Wii has consistently been the leader in the latest-generation game console sales and has been simultaneously behind the curve in having enough consoles to meet consumer demands.

In a recent interview with the San Jose Mercury News the Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Amie admitted that the company is not likely going to meet demands through this holiday season, either.

It’s no secret that Sony needs to pep up sales of the PlayStation 3. Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 continue to outsell the PS3 and as the holiday season starts to approach Sony needs to do something to get its console on the Christmas wish lists of kids. But what could they do? For starters how about introducing a cheaper PS3?

Whether you’re a gamer or not it’s hard to ignore the recent build-up to what just might be the largest game rollout in history – the release of Microsoft’s “Halo 3″. Any closet hardcore gamers in your office could very possibly be outed on Tuesday as more than 10,000 retailers across the nation plan to be open at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday morning for the launch. Retailers participating in the Halo 3 “Midnight Madness” include Best Buy, Circuit City, Game Stop, Wal-Mart and more. Most of them will also be hosting special promotions along with the launch.

You don’t need to frequent one of these popular gaming retailers to catch some of the hype, though. More than likely you’ve already been exposed to the Halo 3 nation through places like Burger King or 7-Eleven who have Master Chief plastered on their products. Even NASCAR is getting into the frenzy with the No. 40 car at the Dover 400 Nextel Cup Series race featuring a Halo 3 paint theme in today’s race.

With billions of dollars up for grabs all based on the perception of who’s winning the next gen console war is it any wonder that representatives from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft will use every chance they get to drop sales figures to the press? The latest salvo comes from the big M touting their Xbox 360 horn. According to gaming mag Next Generation Microsoft has sold 11.6 million consoles in 37 countries and more 360 games have been sold (24.3 million units) than all of the PlayStation 3 and Wii games combined (19.8 million units.) The company’s Xbox Live service is the largest social network in the living room with 2.6 million IM, text and voice messages sent over the service every day. To underscore their bragging rights, a new Xbox Live subscriber joins the network every 8 seconds.

Microsoft also provided the top ten most played Xbox Live games, the most downloaded demos and the most popular arcade downloads. We’ll show you the top ten most played Xbox Live games but to find out who made the top of the charts for the other two you will have to follow our link to the source site after the jump.

Once again, Nintendo appears to be the clear leader in game console sales for August beating out rivals Microsoft and Sony, according to the latest NPD numbers for United States sales in August.

The Kyoto-based company last month sold 403,600 Wii game consoles, along with 383,200 units of the Nintendo DS handheld game console. According to the Financial Times, the Nintendo Wii is now also the number one best selling “next-generation” game console in the world, pulling ahead of …

The Nintendo Wii again has lead the game console sales in Japan selling 245,653 units in the first four weeks with the Sony PS3 trailing at 81,541 units. That’s about a 3 to 1 lead that Nintendo has over Sony’s console sales which is actually good news for Sony as that ratio has been shrinking the past couple months.

In June Nintendo sold around 6 times as many Wii’s compared to the Playstation 3 in the Japanese market, and in July that ratio dropped to about 4 to 1. The PS3 with its Blu-ray player has been behind Nintendo in console sales since they were introduced last year, likely due the PS3′s higher price and lack of popular game titles, but Sony’s plans for the coming months may help keep this trend going. The company is planning to add a number of games towards this holiday shopping season to hopefully entice more PS3 sales, including the very popular Gran Turismo 5 which will go on sale in October.

For gamers who have been waiting for the third and final chapter in Bungie Studios’ immensely popular FPS “Halo” series for the Xbox you can start counting the days left until it’s in your hands. Microsoft reports that “Halo 3″ has gone gold and the master copy is off to the manufacturing plant to be turned and burned into millions of Xbox 360 game discs. The release date for “Halo 3″ is slated for Tuesday September 25. Barring an act of God there is nothing that …

It’s finally official after all the rumors, speculations and retailers having a difficult time keeping the news under wraps. Microsoft has now officially announced a price drop for its Xbox 360 game console, which is the first since the consoles launch.

The announcement brings a $50 price cut off the Premium, 20GB system leaving it at $349.99. Microsoft is also taking the black, 120GB Elite system down $30 bringing its price to $449.99 and finally Xbox 360 Core system will be priced at $279.99 after a $20 …

Sony made it official today with an announcement today of the larger capacity 80GB Playstation 3 game console for sale now both online and in stores in the US and Canada. The new system comes bundled with the off-road racing game MotorStorm for $599 USD or $659 CND.

The larger capacity allows users to download and store more games and media through the game console as the number of games and multimedia content from Sony continues to grow. The 60GB PS3 is still available along side this new high-end version retailing for $499 with …

According to HollywoodReporter some unknown sources say that the Xbox 360 from Microsoft will see a $50 price reduction next month to try to boost up sales of the game console. The price cut is expected on August 8th to be exact, but it was not clear whether the price cut would be on the Core, Pro, Elite or all three.

Many expected some type of price reduction announcement at E3 this year, but were met with disappointment as no such announcement was made, and Microsoft is neither confirming …

The NPD data for June game sales are in and it looks as if Nintendo continues to wallop the competition with both its latest generation Wii game console and the handheld DS. In June Nintendo sold 381,800 Wii game consoles which was nearly twice as much as its nearest competitor Microsoft, selling 198,400 Xbox 360′s. Sony’s Playstation 3 came in 3rd for the full-size latest-generation consoles with 98,500 units. This is the sixth month in a row that Nintendo has had the lead in current-generation game console sales with this months margin …

Reports are in that Sony has sold just over 1 million Playstation 3 game consoles in Japan since its launch last November. According to a report from Reuters , publisher Enterbrain said that Sony had sold 1.01 million PS3 consoles as of the 15th of July.

This rate is still a little behind the Nintendo Wii which reached in the 1 million mark in one fourth the time and has sold 2.9 million consoles in Japan as of the 8th of July. The …

There’s been a lot of talk and speculation lately in the current generation game console market, with Nintendo taking a significant lead in console sales over Microsoft and Sony. Many analysts have predicted that both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 would see some price cuts to make themselves more competitive with the Wii, and Sony recently knocked $100 off of their 60GB PS3 game console.

Most thought this was indeed to make the PS3 more competitive price-wise …

It’s only been a few days since Sony announced a $100 price cut to their PS3 game console, bringing the 60GB model down to $500. But, even with the price reduction this is still more than twice as much as the Nintendo Wii and $20 more than the priciest version of the Microsoft Xbox.

Due to competitive pricing and the idea that more PS2 owners will soon be upgrading to the PS3, Capcom Chief Financial Officer Kazuhiko Abe feels that it is likely that the Playstation 3 will …