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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Microsoft is working hard to be competitive with its rivals Sony and Nintendo in Japan’s market which has proven so far to be fairly difficult for them. Despite a stellar month in September for US Xbox 360 sales, the company has not faired as well with the Japanese market over the past year in keeping up with the home town’s PS3 and Wii game consoles. As the holidays are nearing the company is keeping pace and making moves with its console trying to spur some additional sales with an announced price drop for the Xbox 360 core system and the 20GB bundle.

Starting on November 1 in Japan, the Xbox 360 20GB bundle will start retailing for ¥34,800 ($306) which is a $44 cut from its previous price. The 360 core system will start going for ¥27,800 ($245) which gives it an $18 cut. Microsoft is also putting out a limited Value Pack for the console for ¥34,800 ($306) which comes with Viva Pinata and Forza Motorsport 2 titles but no HDMI cable.

After almost a year of trailing in console sales, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has finally pulled ahead of the widely popular Nintendo Wii marking the first time since the Wii’s launch last November that it hasn’t been number one. As anticipated by many, Microsoft pulled this off with a little help from the launch of Halo 3 which earned $170 million on its first day and $300 million its first week and ended up spurring a number of Xbox 360 sales along with it.

Those sales totaled 527,000 units of the console in the month of September which was a significant jump from the 276,700 sold the previous month. Nintendo was no slump for September either marking 501,000 Wii units and 495,800 handheld DS consoles. Both figures were also significantly more than in August.

It comes as no surprise to anyone that “Halo 3″ would be the best-selling game for the month of September. We also know that the game sold $170 million dollars worth of product on its launch day, but how well did it do in the days that followed? Today we learn the answer to that question thanks to the sales figures released by NPD Group which calculate that a whopping 3.3 million copies of “Halo 3″ were sold in the game’s first twelve days of release. That’s correct, the 3.3 million figure is not even for two solid full weeks let alone a whole month. To give you an idea of how staggering that figure is consider that the number two best-selling game on NPD’s list is Nintendo’s Wii Play with Wii Remote which sold 282,000 units, or roughly 3 million less than “Halo 3″ did.

Microsoft was also able to translate the “Halo 3″ hype into moving more of its Xbox 360 game units off of store shelves. The console leapt to the top of the sales charts with 528,000 360s sold in September, well over the Wii (with 501,000) and the PlayStation 3 (119,000). However Nintendo posted its best month ever selling Wiis for September and usually the company is in first place for console sales, so enjoy your one month of being at the top of the heap, Master Chief.

Normally information that a company is doing nothing with their products price is hardly newsworthy, but when the company is game console giant Nintendo and it’s two major competitors are slashing prices for the upcoming holidays it something to take note of. At least that’s what Nintendo would like as the companies U.S. marketing head George Harrison continues to add onto CEO Reggie Fils-Amie’s talk of Wii game console shortages through the holidays.

According to Harrison, the company is currently making decisions in the nick of time on how many consoles Nintendo is going to make available for the U.S. market. With 10 days of shipping involved and the holiday season right around the corner the company still feels they won’t have enough to meet demand. Nintendo has consistently been the current-generation game console to beat leading sales against rivals Microsoft with the Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3.

According to a new report the Nintendo Wii is expected to be the dominant force for shoppers as well as developers this upcoming holiday season. As it stands right now 86 Wii games are scheduled for release between now and the end of the fourth quarter compared with 47 for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and 38 for the Sony PlayStation 3. At the rate that Wii games are being released there will be more titles available for Nintendo’s next gen system than for the Xbox 360 sometime in early 2008. Nintendo is rapidly approaching sales of 10 million Wii consoles since its launch one year ago.

Today Sony announced they will be launching a 40GB PS3 in Japan on November 11th, a year to the day after the console was initially launched in Japan. The new 40GB PS3 will have a few changes changes from the units currently available including no memory card reader or backwards compatibility and will be short two of the four USB ports, which sounds just like the model recently announced for the UK.

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?