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PC World: The Wii system is in a league of its own for a variety of reasons today, chief among them a unique control scheme and incredible sales numbers that dwarf the competition month over month.

Another differentiating factor in the Wii column is also the fact that price cuts will probably never come to the system, as they have with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Chief among the reasoning behind that decision is the fact that price cuts send mixed messages to the customer, said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

“This is my personal thinking, but when the model’s price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it’s better to wait, and I’ve always thought that was a mistake,” said Iwata, in a Nintendo Japan web site interview, translated by Kotaku.

As Wired’s Chris Kohler notes Wednesday, this is the Nintendo strategy today. The company finds a price that it can maintain indefinitely, and then rides insane sales numbers and popular public opinion all the way to the bank.

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Techradar.com: Sports scientists at the University of Derby are researching the effects of playing Wii Fit and other Nintendo titles on primary school pupils to see if playing the Wii can assist pupils in losing weight.

“We hope this research will determine if playing on this equipment could actually have physical benefits for children,” said Exercise Physiology Lecturer Dr Michael Duncan.

Pupils wear a pedometer that monitors the amount of energy they expend playing Wii Fit.

The Telegraph reports that: “Taking part in games like tennis, golf or bowling on consoles such as the Wii can burn four times as many calories as playing more traditional computer games, enough to keep waistlines in check,” according to scientists from the University of Hong Kong.

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MCV: Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has revealed that the company is producing 2.4 million new Wiis every month – a 33 per cent increase on last year’s frequency.

Speaking in an interview with the LA Times, Fils-Aime called the production cycle ‘unprecedented’.

“Nintendo has continually raised the production levels of the Wii hardware,” he revealed. “We’re now producing 2.4 million units a month worldwide. Last year, we made 1.6 million a month. So we’ve made a 33 per cent increase.

“One of our competitors projects they will sell 10 million consoles worldwide this year. For us, that’s three months of production. We’re producing an unprecedented level of hardware to try to meet demand.”

Fils-Aime added that Nintendo hadn’t felt “any negative impact” from the current global economic crisis.

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SlipperyBrick: Nintendo has stated that it doesn’t plan to release “a whole lot more” accessories for the Wii.

Most of us take that to mean that there is at least something coming, but is this that something? The images come from some European trademark registry site with very little detail, but it’s some kind of pedometer.

Personally I’m hoping that this doesn’t count as one of the accessories they had in mind.

Maybe it’s just a Wii-Fit add-on.

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TechDigest: Optoma continues to push out consumer projectors with the launch of two GameTime models.

The GT-3000 is an SVGA-resolution DLP projector featuring a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, 2,300 lumens brightness, and matching speakers.

It’s targeted at Wii users, being finished in an ice white design.

The GT-7000 is an HD-ready projector featuring 4,000:1 contrast ratio, 1,600 lumens brightness, and matching 2.1-channel speakers.

Both come with matching backpacks, so could be taken on the road, and can project an image up to 300 inches diagonally.

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Eurogamer: Logitech has decided to make a force feedback racing wheel for Wii to work with Need for Speed Undercover.

The peripheral will launch this November and do futuristic things such as turn 200 degrees and feature built-in analogue gas and brake controls.

It’s also wireless, and reducing clutter further is the clever one-piece design.

Which all sounds rather pointless, although the Logitech Speed Force Wireless racing wheel will probably be rather good, judging by the quality of the PS3 version we tested recently.

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Register Hardware: Nintendo has already admitted that the Wii has a storage-related “issue”. But a patent application’s revealed that the firm could be considering a futuristic storage format as a solution to the problem.

An application to patent “Miniature flexure based scanners for angle multiplexing” has been filed by the company, and it makes numerous references to holographic storage.

Holographic storage records data throughout the entire volume of a storage medium, whereas magnetic and optical storage records data onto the surface of the medium.

The futuristic format has several advantages, including the ability to store data at a much faster rate than existing technologies.

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PC World: Nintendo reported strong growth in its sales and profit during the April to June quarter thanks to the popularity of its Wii console and DS handheld gaming device.

The company said net profit jumped 34 percent compared to the same period last year as sales rose 24 percent.

Nintendo sold 5.2 million Wii consoles worldwide during the quarter, a jump of 50 percent on the same period a year earlier. In Japan, however, sales dropped by almost half. Sales of Wii software rose in all regions. Overall, 40.4 million Wii games were sold during the period.

Key titles during the quarter included “Mario Kart Wii,” which sold 6.4 million copies, and “Wii Fit,” which sold 3.4 million.

Sales of the Nintendo DS were down slightly from the same quarter last year due to a big drop in Japan. Overall, 6.9 million of the handhelds were sold in the quarter, against 7 million in the same period last year.

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GfK: Recent research has shown that 4 out of 5 (83 per cent) of people in the UK believe the Wii console increases family interaction, versus just half for the PS3 (52 per cent) and XBOX 360 (49 per cent).

In particular, half believed that both the Nintendo Wii and DS (50 per cent) had a more positive effect on children, compared to just over a quarter (28 per cent) for the XBOX 360.

The research, carried out by GfK NOP in July, reveals that half (49 per cent) of those who regularly use a Wii stated that it helped them to feel close to their children, compared to just 38 per cent for the XBOX 360.  Moreover, 4 out of 5 Wii owners (79 per cent) agreed that the Wii is a good source of entertainment for family occasions, dropping to just over half (56 per cent) for PS3 owners.

While console games playing has traditionally been by oneself or with friends, the Wii appears to encourage people to play amongst the family. Close to a half (46 per cent) of Wii owners say they play Child against Parent (compared to a fifth – 21 per cent – for PS3 owners)  and 43 per cent of Wii owners play with their Spouse or Partner (compared to just 27 per cent of XBOX 360 owners). Less than one in ten (9 per cent) of all people asked claimed that playing on a Wii is unsociable; while one in three (33 per cent) claim the PS3 is unsociable.

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CNet: Last week, attendees at Microsoft’s E3 press conference heard Xbox head Don Mattrick “declare” that that video game console would win the so-called next-generation console war. But if the latest sales data put out by NPD mean anything, Microsoft’s road to victory could be a little harder.

That’s because, according to Nintendo, the Wii in June surpassed the Xbox 360 to become the best-selling next-generation console in the United States.

According to Nintendo, NPD’s numbers show that during June, the Wii hit 10.9 million units sold in the U.S.

In May, Microsoft announced the Xbox had hit 10 million units sold first, a milestone the company said has historically been reached by each console generation’s eventual winner. And in its quarterly earnings release Thursday, Microsoft said it had sold 1.3 million Xboxes during the last quarter. But it’s been clear for some time that the Wii is outselling both the Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation 3 on a monthly basis. And given that the Xbox has been out a full year longer than the Wii or the PS3, Nintendo’s news is all the more noteworthy.

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PC World: Just like its portable cousin the Nintendo DS, the Wii is starting to show it is indeed a “slow cooker” system that started life with a whimper, but will finish with a roar that includes features once only thought possible on the Sony PS3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

Just last week, a series of third party announcements about the system’s online play and shoehorning the Call of Duty 4 engine into what many detractors call the “GameCube 2.0″ could have Wii detractors eating a bit of crow.

First, the Call of Duty 4 engine. During the official unveiling of Call of Duty: World at War this week, Wii version developer Treyarch confirmed that what gamers get on PS3 and Xbox 360, they’ll be able to find on the Wii, too.

Said Treyarch senior producer Noah Heller in an interview with videogamer: “It’s going to look better than any Wii game I’ve ever seen on the market.”

But looks aren’t everything, and Heller said that like its “next-gen” brethren, the Wii version will have a co-op mode and support multiplayer. “For all intents and purposes it’s the same game,” he said.

But how about that other hotly anticipated online-enabled 2008 title, Guitar Hero: World Tour? Ditto, said Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala in an interview with GameDaily.

“Guitar Hero World Tour will be the first Wii game to offer downloadable songs through an in-game music store. Players can preview, purchase and download songs using Wii Points and we’ll have new songs available on a regular basis,” he said.

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Stuff.tv: A 512MB hard drive just ain’t enough when it comes to stashing your WiiWare and Virtual Console goodies. And now Nintendo has poured cold water on rumours that they’re readying USB storage for the Wii.

However, their marketing man here in Europe, Laurent Fischer has told Gamesindusty.biz they’re “working on a solution” to fix the problem.

Although remaining coy about details, it’s believed Ninty will drop a firmware update to allow games to be played via an SD card. This would certainly make life easier for mini–games addicts.

Rumour is we could here about this as soon as the E3 gaming summit next month.

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