Nintendo Co. sold three times as many Wii game machines in Japan last year as Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 consoles, researcher Enterbrain Inc. said.

Only three times as many? We thought it would’ve been more than that. Sales figures are notoriously untrustworthy unless the source is reliable. Just the other day we were reading reports that Sony was top dog or at least close to being No. 1 and now we see that they have been overtaken by Nintendo, allegedly. What choppy seas Wii sail in!

Nintendo sold 3.63 million Wii units last year, compared with PlayStation 3’s 1.21 million, Tokyo-based Enterbrain said today in a faxed statement. Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 game machines sold 257,841 units, the researcher’s estimates showed.

This news story actually shouldn’t be surprising. With some of the revolutionary games coming out for the Wii, the console is appealing to a wide cross-section of the public which is creating the conditions for this fantastic little games box to break all records. Hey we loved the PS3 as much as anybody else but the Nintendo Wii represents a sea change and we hope will set the standards for games consoles in the future. Hell, even my grandma loves it!

In October, Sony cut prices in Japan by as much as 10 percent. In November, the Tokyo-based company introduced its cheapest model at 39,980 yen ($367) to compete with the Wii, which is priced at 25,000 yen. The PlayStation outsold the Wii for the first time in Japan in the period from Oct. 29 to Nov. 25, according to Enterbrain.

It’s easy to get complacent. Games developers need to ramp it up a notch and start developing more games for the Wii. The games we currently have like the Dance Dance Revolution Wii are excellent but we need more. If Nintendo is to continue with this amazing growth the game developers will need to keep up with demand and keep producing the highly addictive games which seem easy to develop on this console. The Wii has been so successful because it is not necessarily limited to traditional gamers but it appeals to many many more people who use it in a more casual fashion for general entertainment with party games and the Wii Sports. Rock on Nintendo!

Source: Bloomberg