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.

Microsoft has released an official announcement confirming rumors from earlier this week that Bungie Studios, developers of Halo, and Microsoft will be parting ways and Bungie will become its own independent company.

Bungie and Microsoft together have brought the Halo franchise, exclusively for the Xbox 360, to the gaming phenomenon it is now with “Halo 3″ which recently brought in over $300 million its first week out. This move will allow Bungie Studios to continue to build on their success and expand their games to other non-Microsoft platforms such as Sony’s PS3 or the Nintendo Wii. According to Harold Ryan, studio head for Bungie, it doesn’t sound like they announcing plans to jump the Xbox 360 ship quite yet, however.

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.

The PlayStation 3 needs a killer game. Fighting with low sales (Nintendo’s Wii currently sells more units than the PS3) and increased competition from Microsoft (”Halo 3″ is easily the biggest game for the fall/holiday season) Sony had been hoping that its “Home” social gaming network would be ready for the fall and generate some needed excitement amongst gamers. Unfortunately for Sony “Home” isn’t ready for a Q3 launch and has been moved back now for a spring 2008 debut so that it can “improve product quality.” Citing the need to make environments that fulfill the needs of America, European and Asian gamers, Sony chief executive Kazuo Hirai said “We aim to launch this as something that can meet expectations of people all over the world.”

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.

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 …