Microsoft has finally fessed up--Nintendo's Wii has won this generational battle in the console wars.

In a reversal of its "we're winning if you don't count the Wii" policy, the company behind the Xbox 360 has acknowledged the success of Nintendo's sold-out, remote-waggling wonder box and instead declared victory over rival Sony and its PlayStation 3.

In his best PR voice, Microsoft VP Don Mattick told BusinessWeek, "I'm not at a point where I can say we're going to beat Nintendo ... [but] we will sell more consoles this generation than Sony."

As of March of this year, worldwide console sales are listed below. Since then, the Wii has come close to 30 million sold and the PS3 has topped 14 million, but Microsoft has not released numbers for the same period.

1. Wii - 24.45 million units
2. Xbox 360 - 19 million units
3. PlayStation 3 - 12.85 million units

Nintendo raised its profit predictions for the year by a not-insignificant 26 percent, prompting the console maker's stock to surge on the Osaka Securities Exchange.

According to the Nintendo Co., Ltd. report, net income is set to climb 59 percent up to 410 billion yen ($3.8 billion) for the fiscal year ending in March 2009.

Nintendo credits strong sales of the Wii and DS systems for the increase. Nintendo's new estimate for DS sales pegs the system at over 30.5 million worldwide, a healthy increase over the previously estimated 28. The Wii is set to sell 26.5 million units instead of 25 million.

Also credited were strong software sales for both systems and exchange rates more favorable to Japanese companies. The announcement contradicts recent analyst predictions that DS sales were due to fall off, sparking rumors of a new DS.

The company's announcement comes less than a day after rival Sony CEO Howard Stringer confessed that Nintendo's business plan for the Wii "may be superior."

In a surprising turn of events, Japan is completely sold out of Xbox 360 hardware. Microsoft's Japanese branch revealed the news today, issuing an apology to customers and promising that the next hardware shipment would arrive in September.

The Xbox hardware has traditionally experienced low sales in Japan, but sales were apparently sparked by the recent Japanese debut of Namco Bandai's Xbox 360 exclusive Tales of Vesperia. The action-RPG is due out in North America next week.

"Currently, the Xbox 360 is sold out, and retailers are unable to restock their supply," reads the official Microsoft statement, as translated by Kotaku.

"This is a result of our own sales targets being exceeded by the actual customer sales," the company continued. "We deeply apologize for this inconvenience to our customers, retailers and business partners...We truly thank you for your patronage hereafter."

A similar sales boost accompanied the Xbox 360-exclusive release of Namco Bandai's Ace Combat 6 last year, though that spike did not lead to hardware shortages.

As is just about always the case after the NPD sales numbers come out, the console manufacturers have all released their own statements to remind everyone how incredible they are, and how the various numbers mean they are the best.

Chances are you already know that your favorite console maker is the best, but let's find out if some hyperbole can change your mind.

Nintendo is happy with taking the top two spots of hardware sales, along with five game titles taking up the top 10. Nintendo would also like you to know that they represent 73 percent of the hand-held sales market for July.

"Great hardware goes hand-in-hand with great software,” said Nintendo VP of marketing Cammie Dunaway. Cammie is currently getting her den wallpapered in $50 bills. It's a good look.

When you aren't Nintendo, you have to pull the "strong momentum" card, which is what Sony chose to do.

"Our year-to-date sales growth of 99% for the PS3 reaffirms that consumers are indeed embracing PS3 as their entertainment hub-of-choice with its feature-rich offerings like Blu-ray and our recently announced video delivery service," said Sony president Jack Tretton.

Microsoft at least managed to outsell the PlayStation 2 this month. When you end up in last place in sales, the obvious thing to do is point toward all the awards your product got, as the company noted it dominated the Game Critic and G4TV awards with a 15 to 14 edge over Sony.

Unfortunately, the Microsoft public relations crew couldn't find anyone to quote this month, but rest assured they are quietly confident you will buy their company's product.

The Xbox 360 edition of NCAA Football and the Nintendo DS hardware led console sales at US retailers across July, sales-tracking firm NPD Group revealed today.

According to NPD, July's best-selling console games in the U.S. were:

1. NCAA Football 09 (EA Tiburon, Xbox 360) - 397,600
2. Wii Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 369,600
3. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Vicarious Visions, NDS) - 309,700
4. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 284,000
5. NCAA Football 09 (EA Tiburon, PS3) - 242,500
6. Soul Calibur IV (Project Soul, Xbox 360) - 218,900
7. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 174,500
8. Rock Band Special Edition (Harmonix and Pi Studios, Wii) - 165,800
9. Soul Calibur IV (Project Soul, PS3) - 155,800
10. Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (Firaxis Games, Xbox 360) - 147,600

Meanwhile, July hardware sales in the United States were as follows:

1. Nintendo DS - 608,400 units
2. Wii - 555,000 units
3. PlayStation 3 - 224,900 units
4. PSP - 221,700 units
5. Xbox 360 - 204,800 units
6. PlayStation 2 - 155,500 units

The gaming industry amassed some $1.19 billion in revenue during the month of July, marking a 28% jump over last month and a 35% year-over-year increase... Read more

The game industry's traditional "hardware cycle"—the rate at which existing consoles and handheld platforms are replaced with new iterations—no longer applies in the current market, THQ president and CEO Brian Ferrell believes.

"We used to always think of this industry as "the cycle,'" Ferrell said, as reported by MTV Multiplayer. "I think the reality now is there are several sub-cycles."

The executive went on to describe the industry as having at least three separate sub-cycles, consisting of the handheld market, the continued competition between Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, and the Nintendo Wii. Ferrell further noted that yet another sub-cycle may be emerging in the online games market.

"It's hard now to talk about 'the cycle'—I think we have to talk about all of the cycles," Ferrell added. "The way we think about it at THQ is we plan our business... Read more

On the strength of Wii sales, Nintendo's first quarter profit increased 34% compared to a year ago, the company announced today.

The April - June period was good for a $996 million profit on revenues of $3.9 billion. Nintendo shifted 5.2 million Wii units, along with 3.42 million copies of Wii Fit and 6.42 million copies of Mario Kart Wii during the quarter.

Taking these figures into account, total worldwide Wii sales are now at 29.6 million.

Sony recently announced it sold 1.56 million PlayStation 3 consoles during the same period, while Microsoft shipped 1.3 million Xbox 360s.

Compared to the same period a year ago, sales of the Nintendo DS dipped by forty thousand units. It still sold 6.94 million units, and worldwide sales of the handheld are now at 77.54 million. For the entire fiscal year, which runs until March 2009, Nintendo expects to earn $3 billion on revenues of $16.8 billion.

Sony Computer Entertainment has now sold over 14.41 million PlayStation 3 units worldwide since it launched in 2006, according to financial documents released today.

The company sold 1.56 million PS3 consoles during the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, which ran from April 1 to June 30. At the end of Sony's 2007 fiscal year, over 12.85 million PS3 units had been sold worldwide.

As of March, Nintendo's Wii had sold 24.45 million units worldwide while Microsoft's Xbox 360 had moved 19 million. Both companies have yet to provide updated figures.

Lifetime worldwide figures for the PlayStation 2 and PSP hardware are not available, as 2007 was the first fiscal year that Sony declared sales, not shipment ... Read more

The NPD Group today released its monthly sales results for US video game software and hardware sales across June.

Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots lead the way on the software side with nearly a million total units sold, while the Nintendo DS and Wii continued to dominate hardware sales.

According to Nintendo, today's data shows that the overall US install base for the Wii is nearly 10.9 million units, making the Wii the "new console leader in the US" and reaffirming it status as the worldwide console leader.

Taking today's figures into account, the Xbox 360 has sold a total of 10.4 million units in the United States since launch. As of April 2008, the Wii had sold 24.5 million units worldwide, while the Xbox 360 had moved 19 million.

June's best-selling console games in the U.S. were:

1. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Kojima Productions, PS3) - 774,600 (Roughly 1 million including bundles)
2. Guitar Hero: On Tour (Vicarious Visions, NDS) - 422,300
3. Ninja Gaiden II (Team Ninja, Xbox 360) - 372,700... Read more

Sales of video games in the United States surpassed those of DVD movies during 2007, the Entertainment Merchants Association and GameSpot report.

Across 2007, the US gaming market brought in $18.85 billion according to NPD. Meanwhile, Nielsen reports that DVD sales racked up $16 billion, and the Digital Entertainment Group shows Hollywood's 2007 box office revenue at $9.6 billion.

However, as we noted last August, the claim that video games pull in more money than Hollywood is only true from a certain point of view. While games surpassed both DVD sales and box office revenue, combined, those figures appear to overshadow gaming.

Then again, those numbers don't paint a complete picture of the rivalry between Tinsel Town and games. NPD's 2007 figure for the gaming industry doesn't... Read more

Disparity between the production cost of the PlayStation 3 and its retail price point caused Sony to lose roughly $3.31B over 2007 and 2008, Kotaku reports.

Outlining potential risk factors to investors, the company revealed in its fiscal 2008 annual report that by pricing the PlayStation 3 below production cost, the company shed $2.16B in 2007 and $1.16B in 2008. Sony added that its major investment in the early development and introductory phases of the PlayStation 3 "may not be fully recovered."

These research and development costs are typical in introducing a console to market, but the costs may prove unrecoverable if a platform "fail[s] to achieve such favorable market penetration... resulting in a significant negative impact on Sony's ... Read more

Following up on NPD's unveiling of May's U.S. console and game sales figures, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo were quick to respond to the data which showed the game industry raking in $1.12 billion—a 37% increase over May of last year.

Microsoft celebrated Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3, 360) as the top selling title two months running, noting that the Xbox 360 version of the game accounted for 871,000 of the total 1.31M units sold in May. The company added that the Xbox 360 leads competitors in software attach rates, with a "record-breaking" attach rate of 7.7.

Meanwhile, Sony boasted 1.26M software units sold last month, representing a 234% year-over-year increase over last year's figures. The company added that it expects hardware sales momentum to continue in June, propelled by the launch ... Read more

The NPD Group has released its U.S. sales figures for May, revealing the Xbox 360 version of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV as the month's top-selling console game with the Nintendo Wii ranking as the best-selling hardware.

The game industry as a whole amassed $1.12 billion across the month, marking a 37% leap over last year's May figures. Despite its $90 price point, Nintendo's Wii Fit sold 687,700 units and clocked in as the month's third best-selling game.

For the first time since its November 2007 debut, Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare failed to place among the month's ten best-selling titles.

May hardware sales in the United States were as follows:

1. Wii - 675,100 units
2. Nintendo DS - 452,600 units
3. PlayStation 3 - 208,700 units
4. Xbox 360 - 186,600 units
5. PSP - 182,300 units

Meanwhile, May's best-selling console games in the U.S. were:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar, X360) - 871,300 units
2. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 787,400 units
3. Wit Fit (Nintendo, Wii) - 687,700 units
4. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar, PS3) - 442,900 units
5. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 294,600 units
6. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, Wii) - 171,100 units
7. Iron Man (Sega and A2M, PS2) - 130,600 units
8. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Vicarious Visions, Wii) - 116,800 units
9. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (Chunsoft, NDS) - 107,000
10. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (Chunsoft, NDS) - 102,000 units

"The continued success of GTA IV is not translating into big hardware sales for either the PS3 or the 360 but there may yet to be a lift in June due to ... Read more

Monolithic retailer Wal-Mart is offering a $100 gift card with the purchase of any Blu-ray player, which includes all PlayStation 3 systems, even the $499 80GB PS3 and Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle that arrives tomorrow.

"Any Blu-ray player. Blu-ray. All of them," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien told Joystiq. The promotion appeared in the retailer's weekly flyer, but it is not clear when the deal is set to end.

The deal applies to both in-store and online purchases, and is likely to prove quite a draw for those gamers who have held out on purchasing a PlayStation 3 until tomorrow's release of Kojima Productions' Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3).

Other currently available varieties include the $399 40GB version, and the $499 80GB version which has been largely phased out to make way for the new MGS4 bundle. For a comprehensive rundown on Sony's complicated family of PlayStation 3 models, check out our buyer's guide.

Games retailer giant GameStop released its financial results for the first quarter of its 2008 fiscal year, revealing a total of $1.8B in sales for the quarter ending May 3.

The sales figures represent an almost 42% boost in sales over the first quarter of GameStop's 2007 fiscal year, in which the retailer raked in $1.2B.

Sales of new video game software grew by 72%, led by GameStop's top five selling games: Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart Wii, Ubisoft's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and EA's Army of Two.

The retailer also revealed that used video game products represented $415M, or 23.9% of total sales. As was the case in previous years, used game sales dominated the company's gross profit figures, accounting for 49.1%—or $204M—of GameStop's total profit in the first quarter of 2008.

Last week, Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 was the first current-gen console to sell 10 million units in the United States, a milestone that senior VP Don Mattrick took as a sign that the Xbox 360 would win the "generation battle."

But according to Microsoft Game Studios VP Shane Kim, that doesn't mean that the Xbox 360 has already won the console war. In fact, he believes it's far too early to call the victor of the current console war.

"[We can call it] when somebody's well on their way to reaching 100 million units," Kim told Game|Life.. "This is only the third year of our existence and only the second year of Sony and Nintendo's existence. Are we just amusing ourselves by trying to declare a winner and loser while the customers are still out there deciding?"

The surprisingly level-headed and humble response comes in the wake of last week's carefully worded declaration that Xbox 360 is the global "high definition gaming console" leader with 19 million units sold worldwide, a phrase that neatly excludes the 24.45 million Wii consoles sold around the globe.

Speaking at today's Electronic Gaming Summit, oft-cited Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter expressed his belief that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will both undergo $50 price cuts by this holiday season.

At present, the Xbox 360 Arcade unit sells for $280, with the Premium edition priced at $350 and the Elite version going for $450. The 40GB and 80GB models of the PlayStation 3 respectively carry an asking price of $400 and $500.

Both Microsoft and Sony have recently commented on hopes that their respective systems will enjoy extended life cycles.

According to a Kotaku report, Pachter further predicted that the overall U.S. games industry will grow 19% this year, but that the growth in subsequent years will slow until hardware is introduced.

Following this week's revelation of numerous hardware figures, Nintendo has added yet another to the list, detailing that the Nintendo DS has sold 19.6 million units in the United States since it launched in late 2004.

Given this new information, we can now add Nintendo DS to the Shacknews-compiled list of known United States and worldwide hardware figures.

Lifetime United States Hardware Sales as of May 14, 2008:

1. PlayStation 2 - 42 million (Sony PR)
2. Nintendo DS - 19.6 million units
3. PSP - 11.42 million
4. Xbox 360 - 10 million units
5. Wii - 9.5 million units
6. PlayStation 3 - 4.15 million units

Lifetime Worldwide Hardware Sales as of March 31, 2008... Read more

Following NPD's unveiling of April's U.S. console game and hardware sales, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have all checked in with their take on the data that saw Nintendo's Wii and DS top the hardware charts and the Xbox 360 outsell the PlayStation 3 by a mere 900 units.

With a whopping 1.85 million copies sold, the Xbox 360 edition of Grand Theft Auto IV was the month's top-selling console title, followed by 1.12 million units of Mario Kart Wii and 1 million copies of Grand Theft Auto IV for PlayStation 3.

Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Jack Tretton claimed that "PS3 momentum is fueled by enthusiasm for Blu-ray" and "PS3 remains on pace for a breakthrough year."

"The tremendous legacy of Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation, combined... Read more

Sales-tracking firm NPD Group has released its U.S. sales figures for April, showing Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV as the month's top-selling console title and the Wii as the month's best-selling hardware.

While the Xbox 360 version of GTA 4 sold 850,000 more copies than the PlayStation 3 edition, the hardware race between the two consoles was far closer--the 360 outsold its shiny black competitor by a mere 900 units.

April hardware sales in the United States were as follows:

1. Wii - 714,200
2. Nintendo DS - 414,800
3. PSP - 192,700
4. Xbox 360 - 188,000
5. PlayStation 3 - 187,100
6. PlayStation 2 - 124,400

Meanwhile, April's best-selling console games in the U.S. were:

1. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar, X360) - 1,850,000
2. Mario Kart Wii (Nintendo, Wii) - 1,120,000
3. Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar, PS3) - 1,000,000
4. Wii Play (Nintendo, Wii) - 360,000
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Nintendo, Wii) - 326,000
6. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (Polyphony Digital, PS3) - 224,000
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (Chunsoft, NDS) - 202,000
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (Chunsoft, NDS) - 202,000
9. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (Vicarious Visions, Wii) - 152,000
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward, X360) - 141,000

"It's unusual for three games to exceed the 1-million mark in a non-holiday month which just goes to prove that great content can succeed regardless of when it is launched," noted NPD analyst Anita Frazier.