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ElectricPig: The Nintendo Wii might be winning the console war but there could soon be a new leader. Sony’s Playstation 3 is catching up. Is this the beginning of the end for the motion-sensing one?

Well, not quite yet. The Wii is still outselling the PS3 in Japan by 1.7 to 1, but that’s a severe decrease from the 6 to 1 battering it was handing out in May.

According to mag publisher, Enterbrain, Ninty sold 235,990 Wii’s in the five weeks ending June 29, while Sony sold 139,494 PS3’s.

Grand Theft Auto and Metal Gear Solid 4 have no doubt helped recent PS3 sales, so whether Sony can close the gap further remains to be seen.

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eNews2.0: Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company does not intend to lower the prices of its Wii and Nintendo DS video games for the following fiscal year. In fact, Wii’s price has been kept constant ever since its release in November 2006.

Nintendo has high hopes as more than 28 million DS units are expected to be sold. Wii’s situation is still a bit delicate, since cases in which customers cannot purchase the game continue to be reported. The company is currently considering the possibility to increase production to no less than 2.4 million units a month. At the end of May 2007, Nintendo announced its plan to have more than 35 million Wii owners worldwide by 2012. Judging by the way things are going right now, there is a very high chance that expectations will be significantly exceeded

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I4U: The Financial Times Germany published a story saying that Microsoft will cut the price for the Xbox 360 on Monday across Europe.

The Xbox 360 Arcade is supposed to sell for only 199 Euro instead of 280 Euro. A 199 Euro Xbox 360 would be 50 Euro cheaper than a Nintendo Wii.

The Xbox 360 Pro would also see a price-cut to 299 Euro (349 Euro now).

Microsoft could win some time with the price-cut to prepare for a new generation fo Xbox 360 consoles with integrated Blu-ray drives. Microsoft is supposed to be in talks with Sony already about licensing Blu-ray for the Xbox 360.

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Portable Planet: An argument could easily be made that the massive success of Wii is directly tied into the innovative Wiimote, and it would certainly be a valid point. But could you picture a future in which Nintendo Wii didn’t use a controller at all?According to Justin Rattner, chief technology officer over at Intel, that’s exactly what’s going to eventually happen with the superpopular gaming console.

“We imagine some future generation of Wii won’t have hand controllers,” he theorized in an interview with BusinessWeek. “You just set up the cameras around the room and wave your hand like you’re playing tennis.”

Actually, that sounds a lot like Sony’s EyeToy, which can sense movement using a camera.  However, the technology never really caught on like the company would have hoped.    Also, one would think that the experience would still be enhanced by holding something in order to get some sort of feedback.

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Play: British retailers have been bereft of Wii stock for weeks now, and with frantic Christmas shoppers now getting increasingly desperate to land one of the consoles, we hear talk that enterprising present-buyers are heading to Europe in search of Wii availability.

While The Daily Mirror reports that some auctions have seen Wii’s selling on eBay for up to 1400 euro, we learn that stocks are available on the continent, with France in particular witnessing an influx of Britons after Nintendo’s machine.

“English interest is phenomenal,” one employee of French game store Micromania told the paper, speaking of queues outside stores, and a limit of one Wii per customer being imposed. Calais in particular has witnessed British shoppers eager for Wiis, in addition to cheap Christmas booze.

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Which: The Nintendo Wii was the most searched for product by UK internet shoppers during November, according to the latest statistics.

Figures from internet research firm Hitwise reveal further good news for Nintendo as its DS games console was the second most searched-for product last month.

The Apple iPhone was number six on the list, while the iPod was seventh and the Xbox 360 came in at number ten.

Robin Goad, Director of Research at Hitwise said: ‘The Nintendo Wii is hugely popular this year, accounting for six in every ten searches for a games console.

‘The popularity of the Wii and the Nintendo DS mean that there were more searches for Nintendo products in November than Apple products.

‘This is despite the significant increases in searches for both the iPod and the iPhone, which is currently the most searched for mobile phone in the UK.’

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Digital Spy: E-tailer Amazon has revealed that it sold 1,400 Nintendo Wii consoles in just 10 minutes after it received a delivery of the hard-to-find system.

Following last week’s news that HMV sold its stock in 34 minutes, the build-up to Christmas has seen orders increase even more, with Amazon the latest firm to see demand far outstrip supply.

Nintendo is now suffering both financially and critically as frustrated gamers struggle to find the hugely popular machine anywhere on the high street.

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The Inquirer: A survey of games console users shows that more women fess up to owning a games console than blokes. Advertising agency JWT said in its Denizens of Digitivity survey that 44 per cent of women confessed to owning a gaming console compared to 39 per cent of men.

This means that the stereotype of a gamer being 18-34, male, single and white, living with his mother, is not necessarily true.

Apparently the reason for the statistics is the growth of the Nintendo Wii which apparently opened the games console to all generations and both genders.

Women are not really playing first person shoot-em-ups but games like Dance Dance Revolution’ and ‘Guitar Hero’.

However marketing dollars are still being pitched to the stereotype. This is because blokes are still the hard core gamers and take their gaming far too seriously and a prepared to queue for days to get something daft like Halo 3.

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Afterdawn.com: After data figures showed that worldwide sales of the Nintendo Wii have overtaken the Xbox 360, Microsoft has decided to firmly set their sights on Europe.

Talking to an interviewer from Bloomberg, Microsoft’s group product manager Aaron Greenberg said “The number one objective is to win on a global basis and that may mean winning some markets and losing others.”

“Europe is our priority focus right now.”

Last week however, Microsoft said it planned to not give up on the Japanese market by increasing the number of game titles available there. Even so, sales of the 360 have stalled since its introduction, lagging far behind the Wii and even the PS3.

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Engadget: We know that Nintendo’s Wii has been a massive hit with families, but we’ve also noticed a growing trend with the physically-interactive game system that is honestly a bit of a surprise — apparently, senior citizens can’t put their Wiimotes down. The UK’s gossip rag The Sun is reporting that seniors at the Sunrise Home in Birmingham, UK, have taken to the console like super-old fish to water.

The pensioners at the institution have been engaging in knock-down, drag-out contests in Wii Sports — playing tennis, boxing, and bowling with a cut-throat competitiveness not seen since the Dark Ages. Barrie Edgar, 88, one of the home’s residents said, “It’s great fun. We’ve only had it a few days but we can’t put it down.”

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The Register: With a look that’s a little reminiscent of the Austrian Steyr Aug 9mm assault rifle, Nintendo’s Wii Zapper is set to help gamers dive into the melee, lock ‘n’ load, lay down suppressing fire and, it’s hoped… survive.

Mind you, it’s taken Nintendo long enough. The two-handed peripheral that houses both the Remote and Nunchuck, handy for the likes of Medal of Honor, which is ridiculously hard to play with the two controllers held separately.

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Nintendowiifanboy: Just hours after we heard that Wii kills marriages, we see evidence of the opposite: play Wii for a stronger marriage! Guess the difference is that the couple that Wiis together, stays together, amirite? A reader sent this into fellow Nintendo obsessives GoNintendo, and we couldn’t resist sharing it with you guys.

The Wii certainly does seem to be something that a couple can share, even if both parties weren’t big gamers prior to the console’s debut. We have seen a lot of fellows with bruised egos, however, complaining that their non-gaming ladies beat the pants off them in one game or another. We thought you guys liked that sort of thing, and now we even have photographic evidence that it brings us closer together. So suck it up, fellas! Anyone want a round of Wii Sports?

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