Wii nearly UK's best seller

[Dante]

The Nintendo Wii is on course to hit one million sales in the UK within three to four weeks, according to official sell-through figures from Chart-Track.

Currently the console is outselling the 360 in the UK by over four to one, and the PS3 by more than six to one each week. If it keeps it up, it should pass the GameCube's lifetime UK sales figure of just over a million by the end of September.

 

Naturally, then, its next milestone will be to overhaul Microsoft's lead in the UK - which, if the current trend continues, could be before the end of October. Although with Halo 3 due out at the end of September and rumours of a possible price-cut to coincide with it, Nintendo will have its work cut out to claim the number one spot that early.

 

Similar success stories are evident all around the world, with Nintendo swiftly closing on Microsoft to become the console manufacturer with the biggest worldwide installed base.

 

The Japanese giant is clearly on something of a roll, with DS installed base figures in the UK now around the 4 million mark.

 

www.eurogamer.net

[Slaggis]

Jesus, the UK is buying a hell of alot of Wii's!

[Helmsly]

Amazing.

 

Still have not brought a Wii myself though.

[Kaxxx]

Shame on you!

[Owen]

Jesus, the UK is buying a hell of alot of Wii's!

 

They sure are.

 

Nintendo of Europe still need to release some of the big-guns quicker, although nothing will take away Halo 3's spotlight.

 

I reckon the Wii is capable of over-taking the 360 this year.

[Kurtle Squad]

Holy shit...Imagine the shifted Wiis once Smash Bros. & Mario & Mario Kart are out.....

 

Those casuals are sure loving their Wiis.

[tapedeck]

I've been having loads of wii partys recently and everyone that attends them go away wanting a wii. These are people aged from 10-40. The power of the Wii is amazing. It's like something out of a sci-fi film to non-gamers. True virtual reality. And when they hear the price (and wii sports is included) they are sold.

 

Good on Nintendo.

[Slaggis]

Yeah, you'd never have thought that nintendo would be close to being number 1 round the world a few years back. It's quite a turn-around.

[ThePigMarcher]

I have constantly been surprised by the amount of people I meet or chat to that have said that they have either got a Wii or are likely to get one. A few of them are also people that I would never have imagined ever owning a console of any sort.

 

Sure beats being treated like an outcast for owning a Nintendo console.

[Columnar]

I'm thrilled by this news. I used to get a lot of grief for having a GameCube even though i was and am still a very proud Cube owner! But now it seems that anyone who doesn't have a Wii gets the grief. As Marv said to Kevin in Home Alone 2: "My, how the tables have turned".

[seanraaron]

My mother-in-law just got one for her birthday (she's over 50); she's in the States and apparently over there the ad campaigns are targeting older folks than they are here, so no question Nintendo is going after the non-gamer market.

 

I know people despair over the absence of "hardcore" titles, but one thing I remember enjoying about the original Playstation was the large number of titles available for it and the fact that I, as a retro-junkie, was catered to as well. Now with the Wii targeting a larger demographic _and_ having a massive installed user base, we'll hopefully see the kind of diversity of titles that probably hasn't been seen since the old Atari 2600 days when you could buy a bridge (as in cards) game or chess for a home console. Not to mention with the Virtual Console we no longer are limited to carts or even discs for distribution and the possibilities widen enourmously. Nintendo may even see the light and open up the regions or allow homedev for it.

 

Of course, let's hope that Nintendo keeps a tight reign on the quality control for commercial titles so we don't repeat the 2600s glut of crap titles that ultimately killed it off.