Wii

The video game industry had another hard month despite high-profile launches headed into the end of the year, according to a report from the NPD Group. Even with a new console from Nintendo, the Wii U, the industry still saw retail sales of just $2.55 billion, a 11 percent dip from the same time last year. The Xbox outsold both the Wii U and the Wii, Microsoft reported Thursday . However, the numbers NPD looks at don't necessarily tell the whole story. As the Escapist magazine noted, NPD numbers only look at...

Nintendo's Wii U sold more than 460,000 units in December — enough to outpace the sales of its predecessor but not enough to take the top spot in video-game console sales. The Wii U figures, released by Nintendo on Thursday night, are from the NPD Group's December report on the video-game industry as a whole. Overall, the numbers were in line with the flagging sales that have plagued the industry all year. But it was particularly disappointing for Nintendo, which needed an unqualified hit to shake the...

When it comes to game sales metrics, feelings are irrelevant and data is king. Research group EEDAR claims to have rather provocative data from a study conducted on "price protection" that reveals Wii games are landing in bargain bins at a rate, compared to Xbox 360 and PS3 titles, of nearly 2 to 1, according to Cinema Blend . "Over 7.5% of Xbox 360 and 9.09% PS3 third-party published titles go into price protection early," said EEDAR...

The video game industry had another hard month despite high-profile launches headed into the end of the year, according to a report from the NPD Group. Even with a new console from Nintendo, the Wii U, the industry still saw retail sales of just $2.55 billion, a 11 percent dip from the same time last year. The Xbox outsold both the Wii U and the Wii, Microsoft reported Thursday . However, the numbers NPD looks at don't necessarily tell the whole story. As the Escapist magazine noted, NPD numbers only look at...

Click  here  for all of GamesBeat's Nintendo Wii U launch coverage. Nintendo's Wii U went on sale Sunday and it's already sold out just about everywhere. Not that this was a big surprise. Analysts have been speculating for a while that the Wii U was on track to do well this holiday season, especially because it faces almost zero competition from competing consoles. IDC analyst Lewis Ward estimates that Nintendo will move 1.6 million Wii U units by the end of the year in North America, and 3...

I think we're all familiar with the infamous Nintendo 64 freakout . And on Christmas Eve Nicholas shared some Wii-inspired freakouts . The following clip was not part of that collection of Christmas cheer. No, this one stands head and shoulders above the rest, like the shining star atop the tree.

Silver Spring's UnbeWiivables successfully defended their title Tuesday at the National Senior League's Wii bowling championships in Denver. The three seniors and one staff member from the Margaret Schweinhaut Senior Center won by 280 pins despite missing their two best players and going up against the NSL's Wii Bowler of the Year. The team — Bing Cheung, Susan Cheung, Anh Nguyen and Karen Maxin — was on a plane Wednesday afternoon, headed back to Silver Spring with trophy in hand.

Japanese game-maker Nintendo said today that sales of its popular Wii motion-sensing game console -- which has outsold Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox -- fell for the first time in its three-year history. Sony also reported today that sales of its PlayStation 3 console hit a two-year low. This news comes two weeks after industry monitor NPD Group reported that June video game sales dropped more than expected, their fourth straight month of decline. Taken together, these data suggest a sort of Video...

When you're lobbing radiation grenades and fighting aliens on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial on an otherwise quiet Washington evening, it's hard not to feel a sense of history. After all, this is the same address where the climactic final events of one of last year's best video games, Fallout 3, took place. That's right, a digitized version of Washington is getting blown up on TV screens again, this time in a Wii-only video game called The Conduit, a just-released title that lets players blast away in familiar...

Channel surfing has a bad rap, at least according to iLike co-founder Patrick Koppula . Koppula says that this time honored tradition of staring at the television and repeatedly hitting a button is actually a highly efficient means of content selection. Today Koppula unveils his latest project, ffwd which is trying to take channel surfing to the web. ffwd behaves like a video recommendation site that mixes StumbleUpon , Last.fm , and Pandora . The site will begin taking applications...

Last month, Nintendo released the Wii U , an update of the popular Wii game console that was hugely popular when it was released six years ago. The question, of course, is whether gamers should put Wii U on their holiday wish list. The most interesting aspect of the Wii U is the GamePad. The full-color, 6.2-inch touchscreen weighs just over a pound and is able to play full games without the use of your television. So if your family wants to watch TV and you want to play with your Wii...

Nintendo's Wii U launch last week got mixed reviews, especially since the new console didn't have all of its promised first-day features right out of the box. In an interview with IGN , Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that he was "very sorry" that early adopters had to download a huge patch on their first day to use features such as the MiiVerse social network and the ability to connect to the Internet. The patch on the Wii U also took a very long time to download. Some users, impatient about...

Nintendo is launching a smaller Wii, but only for our neighbors to the North. At least for now. The company confirmed rumors that it is introducing a new, smaller Wii for $99.99 as a Canadian exclusive Dec. 7. In a news release , the company said that the smaller console does not have Internet connectivity and cannot play GameCube games, making it very focused on family gameplay. The Wii Mini will be able to play 1,400 titles from the Wii and will come with a Wii remote and nunchuck controller.

Fresh off the launch of the Wii U, rumor has it that Nintendo is preparing to revamp and shrink its older console, the Wii. An ad on the Best Buy site for Canada lists an upcoming "Wii Mini," which appears to be set for a Dec. 7 launch. Nintendo did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post, but has declined to comment to other news sources. As Joystiq reported , the retailer's home page lists an announcement for "Wii Mini" pre-orders for a device that will...

The Wii U hit stores over the weekend, bringing its unique approach to the second-screen trend to buyers across the country. The new console — Nintendo's first in six years — has a tablet controller that can work as a smaller screen for different aspects of gameplay or when users want to make their TV gaming a bit more mobile. It's a novel idea, and certainly one that developers and games can tinker with in the future. In fact, you could say that about a lot of what the Wii U has to offer.

Click  here  for all of GamesBeat's Nintendo Wii U launch coverage. Nintendo's Wii U went on sale Sunday and it's already sold out just about everywhere. Not that this was a big surprise. Analysts have been speculating for a while that the Wii U was on track to do well this holiday season, especially because it faces almost zero competition from competing consoles. IDC analyst Lewis Ward estimates that Nintendo will move 1.6 million Wii U units by the end of the year in North...

Nintendo's popular Wii game console will displace Microsoft 's Xbox 360 as the new-generation game machine, iSuppli said Thursday. The market researcher forecasted that the global installed base ofWiigame consoles will rise to 30.2 million units in 2008, up from 18 million in 2007, putting it ahead of theXbox 360'sprojected 25.7 million units. The Wii is already riding a wave of popularity that saw it win the greatest growth among new game consoles last year, according to iSuppli figures.

The Wii U is set to launch Nov. 18, marking the biggest release from Nintendo since the company introduced the motion-gaming console, the Wii. In an interview with The Washington Post, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that this launch "marks a beginning" for the company. "As we prepare for this launch, I think it's really important to recognize where we are as well as to look to the future," he said. Ahead of the launch, Nintendo reported that stores had pre-sold...

YouTube is releasing an app for the Wii, the company announced Thursday , extending the portfolio of video services available on Nintendo's console. According to a news release from the Google-owned service, YouTube's app will first be available in the United States and will be a free download for all Wii owners. The app is built to work with the Wii remote. With the addition of this app, YouTube is now available on all of the major consoles — the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii — and is now available to 400 million...