Wii Are the Champions

The Xbox 360 has been dethroned! After nearly 2 years at the lead of the pack, the Wii has finally sold more than enough units to take the top spot as king of consoles. Leading by a mere 60,000 units we are starting to see how things are shaping up for the holiday race. The interesting thing is that the only market that the Wii is topping the 360 is Japan.

It's stomping the Wii everywhere else in the world by millions, but in Japan alone the Wii takes a 3 million console lead. Microsoft's old weaknesses are coming back to haunt them. Blue Dragon barely made a dent in the market, and Lost Odyssey will likely have a similar mediocre effect. Japan loves it's Nintendo and will not be trading it any time soon.

How does Nintendo keep this lead? Although I have repeatedly said that the Wii is a fad and we will see a new Nintendo system before the 5 year cycle is up, they need to push this casual games thing as hard as they can while they have the attention of everyone. The Wii's weak library won't hold up when people grow weary of the console's controls, so it's now or never for Nintendo to establish their total domination. If we're going to see the Wii hit 20 million it's going to be before next holiday.

What can Microsoft do to retrieve their crown? Steal it back, obviously! Japan hates the Xbox 360. There is no doubt about it, and while their efforts are valiant, they are all for not. The American audience is where Microsoft should continue to focus, it's their strong suite and while they already have a very large NA crowd, it's going to get a lot bigger in the very near future. Europe is another big area that MS has to keep an eye on. Traditionally very accepting of the 360, the Wii is less than a half million behind. I expect Nintendo will overtake the 360 there as well this holiday, but things will flip again when Fable releases (Europe loves Molyneaux).

I think now is as good of a time as any to take a pre-holiday snapshot of the placings. It's going to be a tight race between the two; Microsoft has an unbelievable lineup of titles, and Nintendo still has a very strong following. This is the Christmas that counts, and things will start to slide one way or another. So world, what will it be?