Nintendo’s Wii was the best-selling video game console in the United States in January, and the Japanese company also boasted four of the top 10 games, data released on Wednesday showed.

The figures from market research firm NPD showed that U.S. shoppers snapped up 436,000 of the Wii, which debuted in November for $250 and features a motion-sensing controller that has helped build buzz for the machine.

The second best-selling console was Sony’s older PlayStation 2, which moved 299,000 units and outsold Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s newer but more expensive PlayStation 3, the data showed.

Uh-huh.



  1. Jägermeister says:

    Buy wii, get a girl for free!

    A teenager’s wet dream. 😉

  2. Scott says:

    I’m happy to finally see Nintendo succeed. In the early days, they were always out-innovating sega, and now they’ve gone back to thinking creatively. Xbox360 and PS3 are technically superior, but creatively inferior.

  3. Smartalix says:

    I still kinda miss the Vectrex.

  4. John Paradox says:

    I still kinda miss the Vectrex.
    Comment by Smartalix

    Still have mine, just wish I had the Light Pen and 3D additions.

    J/P=?

  5. Smartalix says:

    4,

    John,

    It makes me sick sometimes when I think what I used to have. I sold the Vectrex to the PX in Germany in ’83 and had the retail stand (made it look like a floor-standing console), the light pen with both cartridges, and all the games. I even had the legendary 3-D goggles. (They had a slotted spinning disk in them synched to the screen.) When I returned to the USA, I couldn’t afford to ship it all and sold it off. I wish I had the foresight then to have held on to all that stuff.

  6. KB says:

    Oh good, Eideard, we get to play “Guess the Country” again. 🙂

  7. SN says:

    Find more pictures of Cinthia and other hot gaming chicks here. My favorite is Greta:

  8. SN,

    keyword search: horndog

  9. doug says:

    any number of people have said it, but it is worth saying again – video games are about having fun, not GPU cycles.

    the wii succeeds because, by all accounts, it is really, really fun.

    good for them.

  10. Wii says:

    My buddy has a Wii, it’s a ton of fun! 4 full controllers, it runs through his computer to a 100″ projection screen, and has surround sound… bowling ROCKS!

    I have to agree about clock cycles and eye candy. Look how long Half-Life remained popular — nearly 10 years!

    At one point around 1992, I lived in an apartment with a few other dudes. These poor broke neighbor kids without anything would come over and play our consoles and computers, they loved SNES and Genesis games.

    Then, one day I broke out my Colecovision and Atari 2600. That held them for weeks — they pretty much forgot about the newer games. The older ones were quicker to play, and easier for all ages to play. They really loved (get this) Atari Combat! Yeah, the tank and airplane game that came with the Atari 2600.

  11. Greg Allen says:

    I think the whole success of the WII is from that video of the sexy chick playing it in her bikini! 🙂

  12. ECA says:

    #2, and the rest of you…
    whats Slowed the 360 and PS3??
    How about COPY PROTECTION??
    Wii is/was/will be, ripe for addons, and modifiying..By ANYONE..not just the Maker of the machine.
    wonder what would happen if the 360 and PS3, made some BASIC/CHEAP/ well made games??? A $400-700 game machines, that runs SOEMTHING that people want to play? compared to something thats $200-300??
    Still comes down to PRICE.

    NOW, I have to ask some of you techies…Is the ANGLE of view ANY different?? Or just a WIDER and the same ANGLE. do you Still have that OLD style 60 degree Andle, that you WISH was 90 degrees(AT LEAST). of 1st person view??

  13. SN says:

    8. “keyword search: horndog”

    Woof woof!

  14. WokTiny says:

    “I have to agree about clock cycles and eye candy. Look how long Half-Life remained popular — nearly 10 years!”

    I duno, StarCraft is about twelve years old now, not to heavy on cpu or graphics, but its still a ‘sport’ in Korea, no?

    good game

    anyway, the Wii rocks, half the price, and Nintendo still made a profit.

    I think its pretty funny that PS3 is being outsold by PS2, sad for Sony…

  15. Its hilarious that PS3 is going to be brought down by the WII.. As proof of its impending success, look at the DS, which is completely inferiour to the PSP in every way (in my Sony hating opinion).. Yet the DS sells like CRAZY..

    ..
    OK.. Why do people like me hate Sony?

    Hardcore geeks know that if Sony is brought to ruin, then the establishment will think twice about DRM schemes and bucking the geek, blog reading/writing public.. Thats it in a nutshell..

    Wayne

  16. Chorus: “OK, why do people like me hate Sony?”

    Blame Sony for bringing the hate on itself. They have been so cavalier with the media (incredibly so) that this has crept into the attitude expressed in the coverage of Sony and that has filtered down to the end users who never hear much good said about the company. It’s amusing to watch and not something that can be changed overnight. I should probably do a column about this. Simply put, Sony itself, through neglect of the public relations function, made you this way.


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