For the first time since it hit the American market, the Nintendo Wii can claim to be the most popular console in the United States. Overtaking the venerable Xbox 360, the Wii now has the greatest lifetime penetration of any next-gen console currently available. 10.6 million Wii’s have been sold, compared to 10.5 million Xbox units. Given the Xbox’s considerable head-start on sales numbers, this is a particularly impressive feat. Sure, the upcoming Xbox 360 60GB might help Microsoft gain some ground, but given Nintendo’s steady progress, we’re pretty sure the company will continue to prove a formidable opponent to both Microsoft and Sony. Wait, who’s Sony again?

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Activision made the official announcement today and Guitar Hero fans will not be disappointed. The fourth entry into the Guitar Hero franchise is slated for a Fall 2008 release and it’s packed full of virtual goodness that is sure to appease even the most discriminating couch rocker. New features, check. Let’s start out with an available full drum kit including pedals and cymbals. Punching buttons on a plastic guitar is one thing but seeing how people fair with the new full drum set is going to be fantastic. There’s also a new microphone and Music Studio mode that allows players to “compose, record, edit and share their own rock and roll anthems.” Good lord. Eight-player “Battle of the Bands” mode sounds pretty intense as well; up to eight players can gather online and compete for the the virtual title. High school audience sold separately. The soon-to-be smash will be issued on Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and 3 as well as Wii. Ready ready people, it’s going to be getting pretty nutty.

[Via Electric Pig]

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Wii Fit is rookie stuff; real gamers use their Wii to pole dance! According to MTV, Peekaboo Pole Dancing is currently shopping for a partner to license its pole dancing game for the Wii. Peekaboo, for those who don’t keep up with the latest in stripper wannabe news, is the company behind Carmen Electra’s pole dancing kit. Apparently the Electra-pole set isn’t enough to get the younger demographic working the pole, so Peekaboo is setting its sights on the Wii. A rep from Peekaboo wasn’t exactly forthcoming with details on how this sacrilege would work exactly in terms of operation, but he did offer some insights:

Peekaboo will be all about fun and fitness for a new generation. Peekaboo wants to make the fitness benefits of aerobic pole dancing accessible to millions of Wii users. The goal is to encourage men and women of all shapes and sizes to improve their pole dancing skills while having fun, toning up and burning calories. Ultimately Peekaboo and AT New Media want to do for pole dancing what ‘Guitar Hero‘ did for rock n roll!

Did he say "men and women"? For real? Barring the occasional YouTube travesty, we can’t imagine any men running to the store to snag a Wii stripper pole kit - for themselves at least. Whatever the case may be, Peekaboo is apparently serious about this and already in discussions with developers about not only a Wii port, but a mobile port as well. We wish we were kidding.

[Via electric pig]

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The Nintendo Wii continues to plow ahead of the competition, posting record sales month after month. According to a recent set of stats released by the NPD group, Nintendo moved 720,000 consoles during the month of April. Whoa! As if that number wasn’t impressive enough, things start to look even crazier when you consider that Microsoft sold just 262,000 XBox 360s, slightly ahead of Sony’s 257,000 PS3s. Nintendo, it seems, is doing something right. The Wii, slotting in at a significantly lower price point than either of its two rivals, has remained in steady demand since its introduction. While Sony’s 257,000 may seem unimpressive, it represents a 98% increase in sales over the same period of time last year. With the upcoming launch of GTA IV on both the PS3 and the XBox 360, Microsoft and Sony should make up some lost ground, but if things continue along these lines, the Wii will most certainly continue to dominate the console wars.

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Remember how jealous you were in elementary school of the rich kid up the block whose BMW-driving parents actually shelled out $650 so that he could rock a Neo Geo? Remember how you had to pick up an extra bike route just to scrape together enough dough for Super Mario Brothers 3 while this kid was sporting a new $200 Neo Geo game every other week? Even if you did kiss his girlfriend behind the bleachers during the "don’t get into the creepy guy’s van" assembly, he still had the better gig and you knew it. You used to wish every day that you were playing Neo Geo and eating pizza at his house instead of playing NES and eating Pathmark Pops at yours. Now you can relive that pain and anguish every time you set foot in your living room. Fan-friggin-tastic. Despite the flashbacks it drums up, the Neo Geo Stick 2 is very, very cool. It enhances Wii’s Virtual Console functionality by letting you play Neo Geo games the way they were meant to be played; with a big honking arcade stick controller. $60 for the controller plus another $45 - $55 for shipping to the US will get you in the door and an extra hour or two per week at the therapist’s office should help suppress the memories it drums up. Totally worth it.

[Via technabob]

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The first three quarters of the fiscal year have been very, very good for Nintendo. The Wii has had incredible sales this year and of course it was one of the hottest gifts this past holiday season. Nintendo’s net profits for the nine-month period ending December 31 ballooned up to $2.43 billion as total Wii sales reached and surpassed the 20 million unit mark. Net earnings were up 96.3 percent over the same period in 2006; that’s right, Nintendo’s profits have doubled in a year. What’s more is that Wii sales don’t appear to be showing any signs of slowing down. Beyond being desired by gamers of all ages, the Wii is attracting new consumers to console gaming like no system has in ages. Nintendo is drumming up business from all age ranges and demographics like no competitor could dream of; You’re not going to catch grandpa rocking Halo anytime soon but entire senior bowling leagues have been formed around the Wii! The DS has also been a big seller for Nintendo as they have unloaded 24.5 million units so far this fiscal year. Long story short, Nintendo is killing it. The Wii has been nothing short of spectacular for the Japanese gaming giant. Systems have sold well, games have sold well and the Wii’s unique wireless controller setup has intrigued the masses like nothing else in recent history.

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If there’s one country in need of all the fitness gear we can get our hands on, it’s the US. The land of the free and home of the Whopper is also the only country that would spur speculation surrounding the possible meaning of the statement, "the Wii Fit is getting prepped for US release". Does that mean that Nintendo is working on upping the already generous 300-pound weight limit, or that Nintendo is finally giving up and hoping that Wii owners in the US fall within the acceptable heft range? Either way, Nintendo announced last week that Wii Fit will be making a stateside appearance in the second quarter of 2008. Many Wii owners have the misconception that playing Wii tennis is actually helping them shed pounds, but most reports state that standard Wii gaming does little in terms of a workout. Wii Fit is designed to take gaming into the workout realm, but of course it’s only useful if gamers can step on the Fit platform without crushing it. The initial Wii launch was followed by a flurry of lawsuits surrounding faulty controllers. Let’s hope that Nintendo learned its lesson and doesn’t find itself in court again as a result of Brobdingnagian feet finding their way through ill-equipped Wii Fit units.

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What does a good Christmas look like for the Xbox team over at Microsoft? Try selling 1.45 million consoles in a single month. How about 1.73 million Nintendo Wii’s? Yeah, it sounds pretty good. Both Redmond-based companies had a amazingly successful holiday sales season, pushing record numbers of consoles. Sony was less successful, selling only 854,000 Playstation 3 consoles. While the Wii is still clearly the most successful (and most sought after) console system, these numbers solidify the Xbox’s lead of Sony’s troubled PS3, and should serve as a great blow to anyone accusing the Microsoft unit of growing a bit long in the tooth. Our question, however, is just how many Wii’s would Nintendo sell if they managed to get their manufacturing system up to par? A lot, we think. Even more with pretty colors in their lineup…

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These days, rumors about old products appearing in new colors is more a question of "when" than "if". Everyone from cell phone manufacturers to laptop companies are releasing old products dressed up in shiny new colors in an attempt to stimulate sales. The Nintendo Wii certainly isn’t in need of an artificial increase in demand, as insanely low supply has left people foaming at the mouth to get their hands on the thing. That said, we certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo decided to drop some limited edition colored consoles. A recent receipt from Target has revealed what appears to be a change in the Wii’s model name designation from Wii to Wii White. Does this imply a Wii Black / Pink / Grey / Green? Your guess is as good as ours at the moment, but we’re sure this mystery will be cleared up sooner than later. What is even less clear, however, is just when Nintendo expects to get anywhere close to meeting demand for the Wii in any color…

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Nintendo wants to help make the holiday season as painless as possible for you. Nice of them, no? The company has just updated the Wii Shop store to allow users to purchase Virtual Console games for other gamers. Gifting a game is as simple as entering the 16-digit gamer tag unique to each device and selecting the game of choice. Nintendo’s magic does the rest, delivering the brand spanking new VC game to your loved one’s Wii console. Could it be any easier? We think not. The only catch is that you’ll have to somehow get ahold of the destination gaming tag, so start practicing your 16-digit memorization skills, fellas.

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It’s not all graveyards and anger for Sony’s Gaming division. Despite their lackluster Playstation 3 sales, especially relative to the success and demand for Nintendo’s Wii, the company is making strides in the handheld gaming market. Following the recent release of Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Sony has seen amazing gains with their PSP. Last weeks sale’s numbers were rather telling, with Sony pushing over 95,487 PSP units relative to Nintendo’s 79,974 DS’. Not too bad. Nintendo still blasted Sony in the home console market, selling 26,181 Wii’s while Sony pushed a mere 13,101 Playstation 3’s, but progress is progress, right? The question is whether Sony will be able to ride this success after the luster of the new flagship game has faded. We’re guessing not, but a Sony fanboy can always dream, right?

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….and it’s November 5th. Activision, the madmen behind this seminal game series has announced that the 4th installment of Call of Duty will be available to the general public on November 5th of this year. The game will be released simultaneously for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, with the poor Nintendo Wii getting the shaft. Sorry, little dude. The good news for PS3 owners is that the game has been verified to function at a full 60 frames per second, something that had been called into question due to previous frame rate issues. Gear up, buckle down, and get ready to attack Charlie with the quickness.

Think it’s difficult to find a Nintendo Wii now? Just wait until the holiday season. So says George Harrison, senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications for Nintendo of America, who said in an interview, "There is no guarantee that we are not going to have ‘out-of-stocks’ this holiday season. If you see one, buy it. Don’t assume that you can come back later and find one." While they’ve tried to find a happy balance between high-demand and actual accessibility, they have yet to be able to meet the demand on their surprise hit system. With competing consoles dropping their prices, the demand could lessen, but it’s tough to make a real prediction considering no one saw the Wii becoming as big of a hit as it has.

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E3 is the time of the season when a gamer’s mind turns to how cheap they’ll get their next console; that’s how ingrained summer price cuts are in the mind of the gaming consumer. Hot on the heels of the rumored denied confirmed $100 price cut on the Sony PlayStation 3 60GB (and launch of the 80GB version in its place) comes talk of Microsoft cutting prices across the board on the Xbox 360. The Elite model will drop to $399, an $80 price cut from the former $479 price. Both the Premium and Core units will receive $50 cuts as well, bringing the Premium down to $349 and the Core to $249. It’s worth noting that these are analyst predictions, coming from Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan. However, Microsoft would likely need to cut prices to maintain both price and value superiority over Sony.  But where does this leave Nintendo?  Exactly where they were; Nintendo would be foolish to cut prices when they can’t meet demand at the current price. That’s how strong Nintendo’s value proposition is.

If Microsoft does cut prices as Pachter suggests, it leaves the Elite as the only console worth buying. Ignoring the HDMI port, it would cost you an additional $28 to add the 120GB hard drive to a core unit, and that doesn’t include the spiffy black paint job. The premium becomes an even worse buy, since you incur the same cost to replace the 20GB drive with the $179 120GB unit. That right there suggests that Pachter’s numbers are far from where Microsoft will end up.

My Prediction: Microsoft will drop the Core from their lineup entirely, not wanting the perception that they’re trying to compete with Nintendo. The Premium will drop to $349, and the Elite will stay at $479 and will either pack-in or otherwise offer for free the HD-DVD drive . There needs to be at least a $100 gap in order for Microsoft to maintain the value proposition of the Elite compared to their own Premium unit, and they’ll want to stay price-competitive with Sony rather than look like a middle-of-the-road option. Further, this means every Xbox 360 will have a hard drive, which is important to developers trying to build games assuming that the drive may not be part of that gamer’s setup. Personally, I’d like to see some cuts to the exhorbitant accessory prices as well. The hard drive prices (and memory cards) are ridiculous.

Advice: If you’re planning to get an Xbox 360, wait until the "Falcon" 65nm CPU is confirmed to be shipping in the new units.  Then, you get the benefit of a cheaper console and a cooler (and hopefully, quieter) machine.  This new CPU is part of what will allow Microsoft to make the price cuts and not lose a bundle, but the cuts will come first, now that their hand has been forced by Sony, so don’t assume that a lower-priced Xbox 360 has the new CPU.  Conversely, those looking for a new PS3 should opt for the 60GB version, and do it now.  The 80GB version has removed the Emotion Engine chip that was used to offer backwards compatability (European PS3 units already had this change), but the 60GB units will retain the chip for the time being (likely until stock is depleted, at which point the new hardware revision will be slipped in).

As if we needed yet another piece of evidence that the Nintendo Wii is beating the Sony Playstation 3 in more ways that one. It seems that Nintendo’s console outsold Sony’s by a margin of 6 to 1. That’s 270,000 - 40,000 units. Whoa. Maybe Sony should consider getting out of the console game entirely? They have yet to sell 1 million units in Japan, which is typically a hot market for Japanese-made console systems. The Xbox 360 has only pushed 330,000 units since it was launched there last fall, but given its foreigner status coupled with its relative success in the U.S., that number isn’t much for Microsoft to be worried about. Sony, on the other hand, has a lot to be worried about. Get your head out of the clouds, guys! Can we get a price drop already?

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It’s no secret that Sony’s gaming division is suffering under the weight of Nintendo’s Wii-volution. Nevertheless, it’s still a bit shocking to hear the following statistic: The Wii is outselling the Playstation 3 in Japan by a margin of 5 to 1. For the month of May, that translates into 251,000 Wii consoles to a paltry 50,000 PS3’s. That’s one heck of a margin. Nintendo is destroying Sony in the portable gaming market as well, with their DS outselling the PSP by the same 5 to 1 margin. It’s seems less and less likely that anything short of a massive price cut will allow Sony to salvage their rapidly crumbling gaming division. Good luck Sony. We wish you the best, but you’ve got a long uphill battle ahead. Best start hit those "performance enhancing drugs" quickly.

[Via CrunchGear]

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Accessing your favorite RSS feeds on your Nintendo Wii just a got a lot easier, thanks to Google. They have released a Wii optimized version of their popular feed aggregator, Google Reader. The newly revamped UI provides simplified navigation and a pared down feature set, making it perfect for use with the Wii’s limited browsing tools. The reader gives you access to a single folder of feeds, and while it’s not ideal for adding or editing your current collection, it does make for a remarkably pleasant and clutter free RSS experience. It’s perfect for accessing information and news updates without leaving the comfort of your couch. This appears to be Google’s first entry into the console specific market, and hopefully signifies a commitment to support and services to the gaming obsessed Google-faithful among us.

[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]

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If your a Nintedo Wii Fanboy but are a little stingy with using your Wii Points to make a purchase through the Virtual Console, then your life just got a tad bit easier. You can find preview videos for some of the Virtual Console games on Nintendo’s own site including, Donkey Kong, F-Zero, Mario Kart 64, Sonic the Hedgehog, and a lot of others. Just remember you need the classic controller to play most of the newer games like ones from Nintendo 64. What is the general consensus on the Virtual Console previews? Does this make it easier to buy a game now?

[Via NintendoWiiFanboy]

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In a shocking move, Nintendo appears to be courting soon-to-be-former Sony Computer Entertainment division boss Ken Kutaragi. Nintendo’s CEO stated during a press conference yesterday that he "would love to see Kutaragi join up with Nintendo." Kutaragi oversaw the development of the current generation Playstation 3. Many think that this poor management skills and bizarre design aesthetic have been responsible for the console’s poor performance following its release last fall. That being said, it would certainly be interesting to see what might come of a Playstation Wii hybrid. Perhaps the Wii Station? You heard it here first, folks. And yes, I’ve copyrighted the name.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

It’s no secret that Sony has been losing money on every Playstation 3 that they put on the shelves. How much this strategy was going to effect their profit margin has been unknown, until now. Bloomberg is projecting massive losses for Sony’s 3Q earnings statement, $691 million in profit for the 2006 holiday season. This is down from $1.3 billion in 2005. Nintendo on the other hand is expected to post record gains as they continue to gain market share, undercutting Sony’s retail pricing and moving significantly more Wii’s in the process.

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This is great article summarizing the rise and fall of the PS3. The rise you ask? Hype. The Fall? Hype. It goes into depth talking about how people want a console they can play with their families (Wii), how everyone has a 360 (Xbox), and how retarded the near $700 price tag is.

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Can’t decide on which next-gen console to buy? Granted we all can probably pick up a Wii if we wanted yet many of us don’t want to shell out the $400 and $600 or both on the Xbox 360 and PS3 respectively. Here is a nice little piece of literature that could help make that mind up for you. Gamespot.com, the video game p0rn enthusiast site, has issued an article which directly compares launch titles that are available on both systems while also letting you know which had better graphics vs. features. In the end you’ll have to make your choice (or choose both) based on personal experience but it helps getting it from the pros!

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