The Wii and its smaller but equally porcelain cousin the DS have done it again.
They’ve risen against the odds that are stock shortages and confused gaming journalists unaccustomed to strange new technology, and have increased the number of units sold this week in Japan. Truly, our offspring will celebrate the success with the gift of drink and song whilst they waggle away with the Wiimote 2.0 and sketch out swear words and crudely drawn phallic symbols on their PictoChat VR interfaces. What a glorious day it will be.
Anyway, DS and Wii hardware sales went UP this week in Japan and continue to make everything else look anemic and weak. Actually, they kind of did that part all on their own, with hardware sales for the PSP, PS3 and 360 (yes, Microsoft’s Japanese offices are still buying up consoles for immediate family members — I can’t believe it either!) all going down week-over-week.
During the week ending April 8 sales of Nintendo DS rose by 28 per cent to reach 110,935 units, despite continuing stock shortages. Wii sales were also up slight from 51,365 units to hit 52,583. Enterbrain figures put total sales of Wii in Japan at 2 million as of April 13.
Hell, even the GameCube went up in sales this week: “Rounding out the hardware chart are Game Boy Advance, with sales up slightly to hit 1,357 units, and GameCube – also enjoying an increase from 205 to 255 units.”
That’s a lot of Nintendo love from me this morning. And to think, I was called a “paid Microsoft corporate whore” by a reader from my real job last week. Ironic.