In the first week or sales, Nintendo’s sequel to the best selling game in the history of the world has already unsurprisingly sold boat loads. If I had to venture a guess I would bet it was a cruise ship’s worth, keeping with the resort theme. Or maybe a sailboat. A big sailboat.

In just four days at retail, Wii Sports Resort pushed 353,827 units. This lands it behind just Mario Kart Wii and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which sold 608,000 and 816,000 respectively.

This is good news for developers looking to support Wii MotionPlus, but unsure of its future adoption rate. Looks pretty good right now. Resort comes to Western shores in July.

Kotaku

Just as suspected, the two big M rated titles released last month for the DS and Wii didn’t exactly fly off shelves. GTA: Chinatown Wars has managed 88,704 since its launch, nudging out Mad World at 66,000 units.

While this isn’t encouraging for third party companies looking to develop mature titles on Nintendo hardware, I don’t think it is as bad as it looks. Both companies are pleased in their own way, and the future may just hold a few surprises with these two. Click over for more.

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In case you weren’t convinced, Nintendo wanted to hammer home the fact that the Wii and Nintendo DS are the two fastest selling game consoles in the history of EVER.

Almost immediately after taking the stage at GDC today, Satoru Iwata tooted this Nintendo horn and confirmed that they had shipped 50 million Wii consoles around the world, nearly all of which have disappeared instantly from store shelves as if they were Beanie Babies and this were 1996. Similarly, the Nintendo DS and its various redesigns have shipped over 100 million units across the globe, four of which are sitting on my desk. Not a bad trend, especially these days.

Press release after the break!

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The 30 top-selling games in Japan for this past year are listed after the break. As you’d expect in a country where you can’t walk a few feet without spotting a DS Lite or DSi, titles for both the DS and Wii flood the charts. Sure, Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G for the PSP took top honors, but leave it to a Pokemon title that’s only been out for just over a third of the time to nearly upset Capcom’s title for 2008.

Following Monster Hunter and Pokemon Platinum, the rest of the Top 10 are as follows: Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Rhythm Heaven, Dragon Quest V, Kirby Super Star Ultra, Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City, and (ta-da!) Wii Sports. You can check out the rest of the list after the break.

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2009 will be Sony’s year, supposedly. Screen Digest has noted that the general decline in Japanese Wii sales during the past two months means that Nintendo will have a tough time maintaining its momentum in the home country through next year, while sales of the PlayStation 3 will finally pick up some steam. They initially thought that the PS3 would have sold better in 2008, but cited Sony’s insistence on keeping prices higher to reach profitability sooner as the reason for lack of successful sales. A series of price drops and quality games could make 2009 the breakthrough year for Sony.

Of course, to soften this prediction up a little, we could take a gander back to February of last year, when Screen Digest predicted the Wii to be in a distant third place by 2010. They’ve also predicted that it will take the DS until the end of 2011 to reach 112 million units sold (which it will do in 2009), and that the Wii’s lead would begin to severely diminish in 2008. Makes you think about Screen Digest a little, hm?

BBC News
via Codename Revolution

I remember checking out the line for Wii Fit at the local Best Buy (I was in the area buying midnight tickets to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for later that night), and distinctly recall the Best Buy employees asking each Wii Fit seeker (none of whom could have been younger than 40) if they wanted to grab a copy of We Ski with their purchase. It’s probably the tactic responsible for this post.

Hudson has apparently sold a million of these babies worldwide. That’s 130,000 in Japan, 330,000 in Europe, and 560,000 copies of We Ski in North America. Now, I’ve not heard amazing reviews of the game, but if the casuals that no doubt made up the majority of that million liked the game, you can expect to see similar numbers for its sequel, We Ski World: Ski & Snowboard, already out in Japan.

Game Watch
via GoNintendo

Despite just having launched on November 1st, Nintendo’s brand spanking new DSi handheld has already passed the million mark in sales. Enterbrain figures place the DSi at 1,062,416 units sold as of December 21st, contributing to the all-DS total of 24,859,874 units sold in Japan alone. Expect the 25mil landmark to be reached by year’s end.

Sales should spike even more after this week. The DSiWare service launches on the 24th in Japan…which it technically happens to be over there right now. Expect more on that by tomorrow.

Famitsu
via IGN DS

I must say, after the two-million-plus sales of the Wii last month, this little bit of news wouldn’t surprise me if it were true. It’s being reported that Wii sales in the US exceeded one million units sold over last week alone. One million in a week. Not bad.

Anyone still doubting if the Wii is once again this holiday’s “it” toy, for the third straight holiday season?

VG Chartz
via GoNintendo

According to the latest sales data from Enterbrain, the Wii has sold 7,024,239 units from its December 2, 2006 launch through this past Sunday, November 23, 2008. Bumping it over the hill was mostly the work of Animal Crossing: City Folk, moving 303,204 copies itself this past week. Other data figures include a total of 24,127,175 Nintendo DS units (including the DS Lite and DSi) since the unit’s December 2004 launch, and 276,049 copies of Crono Trigger sold in the week ending November 23rd.

What does all that mean? It means that Nintendo will continue swimming in money for the forseeable future, and that we can almost bet on City Folk 2 in the Wii’s lifetime. Or maybe just Nintendogs-like promotion on the first City Folk for the next several years. Yeah, that’s it.

Famitsu

Following the October report from the NPD Group, Nintendo sent out their routine press release before returning to business as usual. Anything worth freaking out about? Not really. Anything worth mentioning? Plenty!

The Wii’s 800,000+ in the US last month brought Wii totals in the country to 13.35 million units sold, while the nearly half a million DS Lite and Nintendo DS units sold lifted the platform to over 23 million units sold in the States. Wii Fit, which also sold almost half a million last month, saw its total climb to 2.83 million copies sold. More after the break!

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