Wii Are the Champions My Friends

Nintendo's Wii outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 again at a nearly 4-to-1 margin in Japan this month according to Enterbrain, a Japanese game magazine publisher. The Wii sold 331,627 units during February 2008, compared with 89,131 units of the PS3 (Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold just 14,000 units). Those who stated that the Wii might be ready to wane as new titles flooded the market for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 may have to revise their thinking.

Now, one month does not a trend make, however this is certainly not the first time the Wii console has shown up it's Japanese rival in the console battle for supremacy. Domestically-speaking, the Wii holds the crown in recent 2007 sales, but not by so high a ratio. Also if you factor in the overall sales, the jump-start Xbox 360 had, while facing massive erosion is still keeping them as the leader in terms of highest "current-gen" console penetration:

Video Game Console Sales 2007

• Nintendo DS - 8.5 million
  
• Wii - 6.3 million
• Xbox 360 - 4.6 million
• PlayStation 2 - 4 million
• PSP - 3.8 million
• PlayStation 3 - 2.6 million
• Game Boy Advance - 1.1 million

All-time Video Game Console Sale Stats

• PlayStation 2 - 41.1 million
• Game Boy Advance - 36.2 million
• Nintendo DS - 17.6 million
• PSP - 10.5 million
• Xbox 360 - 9.1 million
• Wii - 7.4 million (closing the gap quickly)
• PlayStation 3 - 3.2 million (struggling to keep up)
  

Currently, the Wii's lead on the PS3 (in Asia) appears to be widening since, in January, the game console outsold Sony's by a ratio of almost 3-to-1. In Japan, Nintendo's "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" for the Wii became the best-selling software for the month in Japan, with over 1.3 million units sold. The "Wii Fit" home fitness game came in second, selling more than 300,000 units in the four weeks.

In Japan, the Wii has been consistently winning the console war since its introduction, beating the PS3 and completely slaughtering Microsoft's Xbox 360 in terms of sales. Will the magical motion-based controller lose its mystery and attraction over the next several months? We'll have to see, but so far it seems to be very steady and shows no signs of slowing down.