"We're very excited about this achievement especially given so many competitive titles this year," said Will Kassoy, senior vice president, global brand management, Activision Publishing, Inc. "Consumer and critics agree that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the best games ever created and further establishes Call of Duty as one of the premier brands in the industry."

Nintendo's financial results for the previous quarter, released earlier today, were nothing less than impressive. What's even potentially more impressive was how quickly it appears the Wii will overtake lifetime-to-date sales of its predecessor, the Nintendo GameCube. According to Nintendo's own numbers, the GameCube had sold 21.72 million units over the course of its six year-plus lifespan, as of December 31, 2007. The Wii, just 14 months on the market, has sold 20.13 million, putting the waggle-box a mere 1.59 million units behind the 'Cube.

In Wii terms, that ain't nothin'.

With Nintendo now manufacturing 1.8 million Wiis a month and seemingly selling every one of those consoles, it won't be long until the Wii overtakes the GameCube... if it hasn't already.

This week's hardware chart shows that console sales in Japan had a slow week during January 14 to 20, with a noticeable drop from the week prior. The PlayStation 3 dropped the least, holding on to respectable if headline-avoiding sales. Amid no new releases for the past few weeks, we shouldn't be surprised. And we aren't. We're just a little impressed at the PSP's ability to hang tight with casual gamer darling the Wii.

• Nintendo DS Lite - 88,575
• Wii - 81,638
• PSP - 79,923
• PlayStation 3 - 38,117
• PlayStation 2 - 13,539
• Xbox 360 - 4,552

Media Create Weekly Sales

Wii Fit has legs. The kind of legs that keep it number one on the Japanese sales charts, narrowly besting one of the few new titles to debut this week in Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for the Nintendo DS. At this rate, Wii Fit could reach the 2 million-sold mark by... I don't know, some upcoming Thursday. Not bad for something advertised as something you sit on, perfectly still. This week's chart, from January 14 to 20, looks nearly identical to the previous week's as the post New Year release hangover subsides. Even Call of Duty 4 is still charting!

Next week may finally see a change as Lucky * Star, Yggdra Union and a new Prince of Tennis game arrives. Yeah, hot stuff.

01. Wii Fit (Wii) - 92,000 / 1,194,000
02. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (DS) - 90,000 / NEW
03. Mario Party DS (DS) - 33,000 / 1,560,000
04. Wii Sports (Wii) - 30,000 / 2,689,000
05. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd (PSP) - 24,000 / 1,534,000
06. Professor Layton and the Devil's Box (DS) - 22,000 / 730,000
07. Final Fantasy IV (DS) - 22,000 / 559,000
08. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) - 19,000 / 488,000
09. Dragon Quest IV (DS) - 18,000 / 1,161,000
10. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 16,000 / 835,000

2007 saw a huge leap in video games sales over the previous year, with software sales alone jumping 34% to $8.64 billion, and Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian sees no signs of the growth trend stopping. Despite the U.S. economy being on the brink of (or waist-deep in, depending on who you ask) a recession, Sebastian predicts that the software market will see sales topping $10 billion by the end of this year.

"We note that over the 1990-91 and 2001-02 recessionary periods, new consoles launched successfully and became significant drivers of growth for several years. As such, we believe it is unlikely that decreasing consumer confidence and economic growth would meaningfully impact video game sales in 2008."

Analyst: US Game Sales to Top $10 Billion in 2008 [Next Generation]

One batch of numbers we didn't touch on from yesterday's NPD sales data figures were the 2007 year-to-date and lifetime-to-date console sales in the US. The figures reveal some enlightening, and for some, distressing, details about the current winners and losers in the US console war. For example, the Nintendo DS, which walked away with the #1 spot in '07, sold a total of 8.5 million units in the US last year, over twice that of the PSP and essentially doubling it's lifetime install base.

The rest of the annual sales are below (now with fresh Game Boy Advance numbers!).

2007 Total Hardware Sales

• Nintendo DS - 8,500,000
• Wii - 6,290,000
• Xbox 360 - 4,620,000
• PlayStation 2 - 3,970,000
• PSP - 3,820,000
• PlayStation 3 - 2,560,000
• Game Boy Advance - 1,120,000

But who's currently reigning supreme in totals?

It is amazing how people can look at two weeks of sales (in our case) in one single territory in the busiest Xmas sales season the industry has ever seen and come to the conclusion these titles are doing "badly". I don't think either title is doing so badly.

Last night's barrage of U.S. sales numbers were so overwhelmingly positive for some companies that they actually crawled out of bed early to crow about it. Heck, Nintendo never went to sleep, staying up all night doing coke with Colecovision and Atari and talking about the good old days.

Activision, perhaps a bit more cautious than their first-party counterpart, shot out an email this morning to point out that they are still the number one U.S. console and handheld publisher for 2007. In fact their market share went up an astounding 7.2 percent to a record 17.7 percent. That astounding jump can be attributed to, mostly, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock which was the number one title across all platforms in December, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which was number three.

Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO, Activision, Inc., commented, "For the first time in our history, we were the #1 U.S. publisher for the calendar year. We are well on our way to delivering sixteen years of record revenue growth and by far our most profitable year ever."

I wonder who they're going to buy next?

Yes, we know that today has been just positively dripping was sales figure data, so it may be hard to muster up the courage to face yet another list. Please, bear with us, as we walk through another week of Media Create published hardware sales data for the week of January 7 to 13. As in the US of A, Japan still loves itself some Nintendo DS. But the handheld hit just narrowly escaped a weekly takeover by the PSP. It was so close! That would've been a story, friends.

The rest of it is, sadly, business as usual, as the nation recovers from New Year's spending. Probably a good thing as we're still coming down from the NPD bender from this afternoon.

• Nintendo DS Lite - 97,369
• PSP - 96,159
• Wii - 84,530
• PlayStation 3 - 38,907
• PlayStation 2 - 14,499
• Xbox 360 - 4,690

Media Create Weekly Sales

Sony isn't going to let a sales drubbing from the Wii and Xbox 360 this past December get it down. The company did quite alright, by its own accord and thinks the best is yet to come, so says its NPD Group sales response. Sony points out PlayStation total hardware revenue was $714 million for the month, which is not pocket change, by any means and a figure that surpasses both Nintendo and Microsoft's hardware revenue.

Guitar Hero games are still selling better on the PlayStation 2, it says, as is Madden. We even get software info for the PlayStation 3 version of Call of Duty 4, which sold 522,000 copies to the Xbox 360's 1.47 million. Hang in there guys! Full statement after this.

The video game industry saw dollar sales in the U.S. of $17.94 billion last year, an impressive increase of 43% over the previous year, when it sold $12.53 billion worth of video games, consoles, portables and accessories. Sales were up across the board, with the biggest boosts coming from console hardware sales ($5.12 billion in business, up 73%) and accessories ($2.26 billion in business, up 59%). December alone saw $4.82 billion worth of video game goods sold, with over $2 billion worth of video games sold bolstering those figures.

More expensive hardware on the market for the full year certainly contributed to those impressive console hardware sales, but the 8.5 million Nintendo DS portables sold in 2007 had a lot to do with that, too. Look, everyone just made tons of cash, okay?

For a full breakdown of annual spending, plus comments from NPD analyst Anita Frazier, continue.

We won't trot out itprintsmoney.gif this time, because that animated image simply doesn't do justice to newly released hardware sales data from the NPD Group and the staggering figures coming out of Nintendo. The Nintendo DS sold an amazing 2.47 million Nintendo DS units to shoppers in December 2007, nabbing the number one spot and nearly doubling sales of its closest competitor, the Wii. Nintendo DS sales represent about a third of billion dollars in hardware sales alone.

The Wii also had a very good month, beating out console competition the Xbox 360 by a solid 90,000 and trouncing the PlayStation 3, who brought up the rear with a respectable six-figure showing. The December casualty report from the US Console War of 2007 is below.

• Nintendo DS - 2,470,000
• Wii - 1,350,000
• Xbox 360 - 1,260,000
• PlayStation 2 - 1,100,000
• PSP - 1,060,000
• PlayStation 3 - 797,600

NPD sales figures for December show that Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare took the top spot this holiday season, selling 1.47 million copies of the Xbox 360 version alone. The Activision published shooter just narrowly beat out Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, which settled for number two and 1.4 million sold to software hungry Wii owners.

The rest of the list features familiar faces, with Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III selling ludicrous amounts. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for Wii takes the tail end of the top ten, making the Sega-predicted 4 million copies sold seem that much more reasonable.

Today's NPD sales numbers reveal that Bungie's Halo 3 was the best selling game in the United States in 2007, with a whopping 4.82 million copies sold. Nipping at Master Chief's heels was Nintendo's own Wii Play. It sold through a staggering 4.12 million units to the masses.

Despite generally negative review scores, it would seem that Wii owners were consumed by the prospect of more mini-games (and a second Wii remote) nearly on par with the thirst that Xbox 360 owners had for more Halo. An impressive feat for Nintendo, but more impressive for Microsoft, considering Wii Play had a seven month head start on the first-person shooter.

The top ten best selling games in the USA for last year are after the jump.

Wii Fit has already crossed the million-sold mark in Japan and it doesn't look like it will be going away any time soon, as this past week it claimed the #1 spot, pushing a cool 90,000 copies. Not bad for a six week old game that rings up at 8,800 yen. The rest of the top ten should look awfully familiar, as the weekly releases for January 7 to 13 were... well, they were a bit light. Nonexistent-like.

You may notice, at the bottom of the top ten, that Mario Kart DS is nearing sales of 3 million copies in Japan alone. I suppose that's respectable. More of the Nintendo love-fest after the jump.

01. Wii Fit (Wii) - 90,000 / 1,101,000
02. Mario Party DS (DS) - 43,000 / 1,527,000
03. Wii Sports (Wii) - 33,000 / 2,658,000
04. Final Fantasy IV (DS) - 32,000 / 537,000
05. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd (PSP) - 26,000 / 1,511,000
06. Professor Layton and The Devil's Box (DS) - 25,000 / 708,000
07. Dragon Quest IV (DS) - 25,000 / 1,143,000
08. Wii Play (Wii) - 25,000 / 2,155,000
09. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) - 22,000 / 468,000
10. Mario Kart DS (DS) - 17,000 / 2,908,000

We know that Nintendo dominated 2007, with a constant, reliable stream of good news and strong sales. But how did the rest of the competition stack up? We've decided to look back at a full year of sales data from Japanese analyst outlet Media Create, whose sales data we regularly feature in the Simple 2000 Japanese Sales Chart series.

With a license to seemingly print money, Nintendo took 2007 by storm, establishing console and handheld dominance with its two casual friendly game devices. Nintendo DS and Wii dominated software and hardware charts, seeing a steady flow of week to week sales for both platforms, appearing to only weaken when supply was constrained.

Sony's offerings, the PSP, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 2, had a solid (if not spectacular) year. The PS3 didn't make any waves, but the PSP did. The PS2, now seven years long in the tooth, still had a bit of life in it.

The Xbox 360? Well, we don't have nice things to say about its Japanese performance, so we'll just let the charts do the talking.

The coming of the new year in Japan brought good fortune to Sony and Nintendo, as Media Create analyzed hardware sales for the first week of 2008 saw PSP and Nintendo DS sales through the roof. Cash was flowing to the tune of nearly 800,000 consoles and handhelds snatched up by Japanese consumers from December 31 to January 6. Here's how it all played out, console war-wise.

• Nintendo DS Lite - 266,568
• PSP - 218,234
• Wii - 207,797
• PlayStation 3 - 64,183
• PlayStation 2 - 32,010
• Xbox 360 - 9,763

Media Create Weekly Sales

No, it's not a double post—this week we have twice the sales data to drink in, this time representing weekly software sales in Japan from December 31 to January 6. And this chart is nothing short of total Nintendo domination, as the top ten games sold that week were all for the Nintendo DS and Wii. In fact, eight of the top ten were published by Nintendo themselves, with Square-Enix picking up the other two spots.

As you already know, Wii Fit passed a million sold already. It looks like it won't be long until Super Mario Galaxy matches that and Mario Party DS, again at number one, doubles that.

01. Mario Party DS (DS) - 196,000 / 1,484,000
02. Wii Fit (Wii) - 127,000 / 1,011,000
03. Wii Sports (Wii) - 118,000 / 2,625,000
04. Final Fantasy IV (DS) - 91,000 / 505,000
05. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 82,000 / 802,000
06. Wii Play (Wii) - 78,000 / 2,130,000
07. Dragon Quest IV (DS) - 78,000 / 1,118,000
08. Professor Layton and the Devil's Box (DS) - 76,000 / 683,000
09. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) - 75,000 / 447,000
10. Mario Party 8 (Wii) - 66,000 / 1,145,000

Middling review scores and a negative association with the controversy surrounding the termination of a Gamespot employee doesn't seem to have harmed the sales performance of the Eidos-published Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The IO Interactive action game has sold over a million copies since its launch in November, according to a report from Next Generation. That would mean sequel talk is more than likely, despite my predictions that everyone involved would like to avoid franchise talk like the plague. Guess that movie is still going ahead, too.

Also a big hit for parent company SCI? Pony Friends, which is, as far as we know, a harrowing pony war game.

Kane and Lynch Sells 1 mln [Next-Gen]

"Driven by robust domestic and international sales, GameStop achieved the most successful holiday season results ever," said company chairman and CEO Richard Fontaine. "Video game software sales grew by 45%, while the next generation installed base is now triple last year's base and a very positive leading indicator for future sales growth."

Hardware sales. From Japan. You know how this works, right? The Nintendo DS obscenely outsells everything and the Xbox 360 picks up the tail end. It's essentially the same story for the last week of 2007, as hardware data from Media Create has finally come about for the end of last year. One interesting aspect, though, is the ass kicking the PSP gave the Wii that week, which may have been driven by Star Ocean and Haruhi sales. Somehow, though, that doesn't sound quite right. Maybe folks just love the PSP and multimedia options. Let's give it up for multimedia, people!

• Nintendo DS Lite - 218,876
• PSP - 161,370
• Wii - 152,209
• PlayStation 3 - 52,706
• PlayStation 2 - 25,569
• Xbox 360 - 8,304

Media Create Weekly Sales

After going on a bit of a holiday break, Media Create sales figures are back, showing that Wii Fit will mostly likely be a million seller by the time you read this. Incidentally, the next batch of MC sales data is expected tomorrow, so we'll most likely have confirmation supporting or disproving that soon. Dragon Quest IV for the Nintendo DS ticked over the million mark during the week of December 24 to 31 and a handful of new PSP games charted in the top ten. For the rest of the week's software sellers and a chance to see how Call of Duty 4 performed, hit the jump.

Oh yeah. Haruhi! I know you've been waiting...

01. Super Robot Wars OG Gaiden (PS2) - 197,000 / NEW
02. Wii Fit (Wii) - 135,000 / 884,000
03. Mario Party DS (DS) - 131,000 / 1,288,000
04. Final Fantasy IV (DS) - 126,000 / 414,000
05. Star Ocean: First Departure (PSP) - 105,000 / NEW
06. Wii Sports (Wii) - 82,000 / 2,507,000
07. Suzumiya Haruhi no Yakusoku (PSP) - 81,000 / NEW
08. Professor Layton and The Devil's Box (DS) - 80,000 / 607,000
09. Dragon Quest IV (DS) - 78,000 / 1,041,000
10. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 56,000 / 720,000

Robbie Bach says that the continuing success of the Xbox 360 is "another indication of the power of digital technology to transform the way people access and experience entertainment of all kinds."

Bach says that Microsoft sold 17.7 million consoles this season, surpassing their expectations and putting the 360 on track for the biggest year in video game history.

"With its continued momentum in games, accessories and digital entertainment via our leading online service Xbox LIVE, and record-setting games and accessory attach rates, evidence is everywhere that Xbox 360 is thriving," Bach said.

CES press release [Microsoft]

In yet another press release today, Sony announced that they sold over 3.9 million hardware units over the 2007 holiday season. This number of course, is an accumulation of all gaming hardware sold including the PS2, PSP and PS3 in the time from Black Friday, November 23 to December 31. Here's the breakdown:

• PSP: 1.4 Million Units
• PS2: 1.3 Million Units
• PS3: 1.2 Million Units

It's interesting to note that the PS3 sold less units than both the PSP and the PS2. Not only that but the PS2 sold almost as many units as the PSP and is making up a third of Sony's total sales. Not too shabby for a seven year old system.

Selling 330,000 copies of Mario Party DS a week in Japan is impressive, to say the least, but when the nation is snapping up nearly as many Nintendo DS handhelds in the same time frame, it goes a long to explaining the resurgence. Final Fantasy IV's portable availability probably didn't hurt. Nintendo once again dominates (Ed's note: look up synonym for dominate) the Media Create sales charts this week, selling hardware at nearly twice the rate of its competitors combined. Someone over there likes their mini-games!

• Nintendo DS Lite - 279,551
• Wii - 232,907
• PSP - 171,804
• PlayStation 3 - 58,167
• PlayStation 2 - 20,391
• Xbox 360 - 7,908

Media Create Weekly Sales

Given that this week's software sales charts from Media Create show Nintendo DS and Wii games outperforming everything that isn't Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, one might assume that Nintendo hardware would see the biggest boost in sales. Oh, sure, selling over 222,000 Nintendo DS Lites is no small feat. It's damn impressive. However, the week to week doubling of PSP sales, pushing over 180,000 of the things without a major software release is, well, its kind of hard to sort out. But more power to 'em, I say.

In handy list form, here's how the console wars went down in Japan for the week of December 10th to the 16th.

• Nintendo DS Lite - 222,132
• PSP - 184,610
• Wii - 170,558
• PlayStation 3 - 63,720
• PlayStation 2 - 18,025
• Xbox 360 - 8,561

Media Create Weekly Sales

Here's something you might not have expected. Despite having debuted in the second week of November, Mario Party DS for the Nintendo DS tops this week's Japanese software sales chart. It beat out the recently released Wii Fit—now past the half-million mark—and new debut Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for the PlayStation 3. In fact, this past week represents Mario Party DS's best sales week ever. In general, software for Nintendo platforms was way up, with Wii Sports and Wii Play returning to top ten glory. Probably going to be a good week for the console.

What didn't perform too well? The long-awaited sequel NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, which, according to Media Create, charted at #27 in its first week. Poor Sega. I almost feel bad for them! I'll try to maintain a straight face while you check out the top ten for the week of December 10th to 16th. More after the jump.

01. Mario Party DS (DS) - 180,000 / 826,000
02. Wii Fit (Wii) - 124,000 / 535,000
03. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3) - 116,000 / NEW
04. Professor Layton and The Devil's Box (DS) - 74,000 / 444,000
05. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - 74,000 / 550,000
06. Dragon Quest IV (DS) - 73,000 / 868,000
07. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii) - 64,000 / 212,000
08. Wii Sports (Wii) - 55,000 / 2,341,000
09. Wii Play (Wii) - 55,000 / 1,921,000
10. Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon: The Labyrinth of Forgotten Time (Wii) - 41,000 / NEW

I think it's probably safe to assume that most stores sold of out their Wii pretty damn quickly yesterday. I haven't yet tried calling around, but on Sunday I did swing by one of the local Targets to pick up some non-game related stuff for an upcoming trip. Just for fun I hopped on by the game section to see how things were going. Not only had the store sold out of their Wii stock, they had sold out of Remotes and Nunchucks. One of the employees I talked to said they had an amazing 160 Wii in stock Sunday morning. All of them were gone by 8:15 a.m., he said.

I overheard him talking to two parents, tragically late to the Wii consumer bloodbath earlier that day. They first tentatively asked about the Wii and then, when they found out they missed the boat, said they weren't even sure their son wanted a Wii. The sales clerk dove right in.

"How old is your son?"
"16"
Slight grimace
"I'm 18 and I have a Wii and a 360. The Wii is fun for when friends come over, but I usually play my 360."

In the end I think the parents decided to leave empty handed. I almost told them about the GameStop rain checks, but changed my mind. Who wants a piece of paper for Christmas?

Now that those pesky Americans have had their say with their video game buying habits, it's time to check in with the Japanese. Unsurprisingly, the Nintendo DS continues to top the charts overseas, as well, with the new Wii Fit player coming in second. Both units gave Nintendo a bigger slice of the pie this time. It was an up week for just about everyone, as strong sales of Hot Shots Golf Portable 2, Wii Fit and Tales of Innocence kept hardware moving. For the week of December 3rd through the 9th, Media Create sales charts stacked up like so.

• Nintendo DS Lite - 168,255
• Wii - 115,057
• PSP - 91,481
• PlayStation 3 - 38,123
• PlayStation 2 - 11,987
• Xbox 360 - 8,876

Media Create Weekly Sales