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Filed under: News

Analysts think that due to the continuing decline of the U.S. dollar and the 13-year high for the Japanese Yen, you won’t be seeing too many hot deals on Nintendo’s Wii this holiday season. With the Yen being so high, it drives up the cost of Japanese goods for U.S. retailers. And, seeing as how the U.S. economy has been in such bad shape all year, merchants have discounted their goods to offset that fall to a point where they can’t afford to lower prices to attract customers any more.

Wii Fit, one of the items analysts see as being a must-have this season, could be most affected. With the profit margin on it so small (same goes for the Wii console itself), retailers can’t afford to cut prices. One positive thing to come out of this, however, is that the Euro has been on a decline, as well. This means that Nintendo should be shipping more to the U.S., whereas in the past, Nintendo focused on Europe first.

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Filed under: News

The NPD numbers aren’t going to be available until later this week, but Michael Pachter is still doing his thing and tossing some predictions out there. With that Grand Theft Auto IV game releasing in April (and shattering records like crazy), many might think that Nintendo is going to have to relinquish its throne for a short while, like when that Halo 3 game released. Pachter doesn’t think so, however, and called for another victory for Nintendo.

600,000 units is the magic number, according to the analyst, as he says Wii will once again reign supreme when the April NPD numbers release. Considering a pretty big Wii title released during that month, we’re inclined to agree with the man.

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Filed under: News

Rejoice!

The Wii has managed to skedaddle back on top, enjoying the comfortable cushion of the NPD throne. In resting its behind in the big chair, you can see the Wii made sure that the Xbox 360's time at the top was short-lived. Welcome back, Nintendo. We've missed you.

The hardware sales:

• Nintendo Wii: 519K (5 million total)
  
• Nintendo DS: 458K (13.6 million total)
• Microsoft Xbox 360: 366K (7.1 million total)
• Sony PSP: 286K (8.8 million total)
• Sony PlayStation 2: 184K (39.4 million total)
  
• Sony PlayStation 3: 121K (1.9 million total)

The top 10 software sales:

1. Halo 3 (all three SKUs - Xbox 360) -- 433.8K
2. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock w/ guitar (Xbox 360) -- 383.2K
   
3. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock w/ guitar (Wii) -- 286.3K
   
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock w/ guitar (PS2) -- 271.1K
5. Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS) -- 262.8K
6. Wii Play (Wii) -- 239.7K
7. The Orange Box (Xbox 360) -- 238.4K
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock standalone (PS2) -- 231.7K
9. FIFA Soccer '08 (PS2) -- 129.7K
10. Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day (DS) -- 116.9K

[Via Joystiq]

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Filed under: News

Yesterday, a weird report surfaced over at GAF showing some sales data that seemed to support the word that Nintendo sold 13.17 million Wii consoles worldwide. We danced here at the Wii Fanboy offices, but we couldn't understand the rest of the report. It was in language so ancient and beautiful that our lowly little retinas could not decipher the information it held within.

Then, a hero emerged, silent and mysterious, to translate the script for all of us lowly mortals. What was within the report was both equal parts shocking and exciting. Well, maybe more of the latter, but you get the idea. It's good news!

The report shows that Wii Play has sold over 6.32 million worldwide, with Mario Party 8 selling over almost half as much with 2.89 million worldwide. Other notable titles include Super Paper Mario (1.74 million), Mario Strikers Charged (1.33 million) and Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree (1.38 million). Of course, the top seller is Wii Sports, which has sold 11.86 million (930,000 units sold in Japan), which isn't surprising considering it comes bundled with the system here in the United States.

Update: It's almost ... not over. Silly me.

[Via GoNintendo]

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Filed under: News

Sales for the week of Thanksgiving were ridiculous for Nintendo, as the U.S. saw an incredible 350,000 Wii units hit retail shelves and get eagerly snatched up by consumers just as quickly. As if that wasn't impressive enough, word is that the Wii sold 300,000 units the week prior, meaning that in a two week span, the Wii sold a ridiculous 650,000 units.

If these sales hold up for the last week of November, the console could very well sell near a million in November alone. Ridiculous just doesn't begin to explain it!

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Looks like November in Japan fared better for Sony than it did for Nintendo, as sales for the PS3 beat out the Wii. Selling 183,217 units to Nintendo's 159,193 units, it would appear that Sony's system is becoming the more desirable system in the region and a trend is emerging. The reality, however, is likely very different.

With the Wii being so scarce (despite Nintendo supposedly manufacturing almost 2 million units a month), as well as Sony introducing a cheaper 40gb model of their PS3 console, the factors involved contributed to a favorable month for Sony. Should Nintendo manage to produce enough consoles so that the Wii could actually be on the shelf for consumers when they want to buy it, then we're sure we would be writing a very different story right now.

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