Nintendo of America on Monday announced that it had sold more than 600,000 Wii units since the console's launch and that with first-party and accessory sales the system had brought in $190 million in its first week.

"Even with sales already in excess of 600,000 units, demand continues to exceed supply, as it's clear this is one of the 'gotta-have' products for the holiday season," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "We've shipped retailers several times the amount of hardware the other company was able to deliver for its launch around the same time -- and we still sold out. Given the inclusive nature of Wii game play, we're seeing this new form of video gaming is already a huge hit with gamers and newcomers alike. It continues to be a phenomenal launch."

As expected, The Legends of Zelda: Twilight Princess was the best-selling Wii game, with 454,000 copies sold to day. That means 75% of all Wii owners are also playing Zelda.

The Big N originally stated that it planned to ready about a million consoles for the debut in the Americas. Despite the smaller number of units available at launch, Nintendo is still expected to make close to four million Wii systems available for purchase before year's end.

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Gears of War Sells Over a Million
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Gears of War is a hit. Big shock. In fact, Gears has now sold more than one million copies worldwide, making it the fastest-selling Xbox 360 title of 2006. Gamers bought Gears and many of them took it online. More than 850,000 gamers joined in 10 million gameplay seassions, putting Gears atop the Xbox Live play charts. Gears of War has also helped to grow Xbox Live Gold per-day memberships by 50 percent over the past two weeks.

"From the very beginning, we knew 'Gears of War' would be an industry-defining hit," said Shane Kim, corporate vice president at Microsoft Game Studios. "As we watched both the game and its hype grow, it became obvious that Gears of War was the rare title that could live up to such incredible anticipation, and judging from the reaction of critics and fans, it's done just that."

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Developers Waiting for Sony's Help with PS3
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As head of the Game Developers Convention, Jamil Moledina is constantly in talks with developersabout the newest game technologies. We've known for a while that the PlayStation 3 is the most powerful console ever developed, and, depending on who you talk to, one of the most difficult to develop for. According to Moledina, many developers are ready to jump on the PS3 bandwagon but haven't been shown how to wield the power of the Cell processor.

Speaking with Games Industry, Moledina said, "It's a relatively complex platform to develop for, considering it has a very unique multi-core processor with the Cell. A lot of developers are new to figuring out how to work with that structure, as well as the RSX, the graphics processor. It's always a challenge for developers to dedicate resources to next-generation titles like this -- consider the cost, resources, and time it takes to make these games."

Rather than take a gamble with hardware they do not yet understand, Moledina says many developers are looking to handhelds for the time being. "A lot of the developers I know are waiting out on the first round and focusing on handhelds; they're creating DS and PSP titles because that's actually a much simpler migration from the current-gen."

But now that the PS3 is out, Moledina believes Sony will start sharing the love with developers outside its first-party circle. "A lot of Sony's effort has been focused on helping first party understand how to develop games for it," he stated. "I think you're going to see that knowledge shared more robustly now that those first-party titles are in the can, as it were, or close to being complete."

Moledina also noted that the PS3 launch "reminds me very much of the original PlayStation 2 launch, where there were a hatful of pretty good titles."

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