Number Of Wiis in UK Hits 1 Miillion

No its not a typo, its another one of my ghastly puns. Its official, the Nintendo Wii has sold more than 1 million units in the UK, and that in only 38 weeks. This beats the previous record, set by the Playstation 2, of 50 weeks. This makes the Wii the UK’s fastest selling console ever (not the biggest, the PS2 still holds that title for the time being), which is not bad for the dark horse of this generation of consoles.

The Wii’s release bemused and delighted publishers and consumers respectively, with many publishers now scrabbling to bring games out on a console which they originally thought was a bit of a gimmick. Though the Wii has been an outstanding success in terms of sales, many gamers have been dismayed by Nintendo’s apparent abandonment of the hardcore segment of the games market for a more casual approach. While opening up gaming to a wider audience is to be lauded, the lack of games available for hardcore players has the potential to alienate a large proportion of Nintendo’s previous fanbase.

The gamble that Nintendo took with the Wii is proving to pay off, supply difficulties notwithstanding, and they look like being the winner of this round of the console wars. An innovative and low cost (profitable since release apparently) console, with accessible and, above all, fun games has trumped the ‘more power, prettier pictures’ ethos of Microsoft and Sony, and their battle looks to be one for second place. Congratulations Nintendo.
(From Total Video Games.)

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