I’ve been checking out the ol’ My Wii News blog today and I was partially amazed and partially disappointed that Japan has sold only 5 Million Wii units. Not that I’m particularly crazy or anything, because I DO realize that 5 Million is a damn big number, but I was really hoping for the figures to show more for the Japanese fanboys…
Because Europe just hit 6 Million Wii sales!
This will really show Bucky why Wii consoles are very hard to find. 
The story, derived from MCV, reported that the Nintendo Wii sales had just hit 6 Million as of January 2008 along with whopping 20 Million DS sales. That’s one hell of a lot of Nintendo cash if you can imagine just counting the sales from both Japan and Europe. And considering the fact that Nintendo has sold over 20 Million Wiis last year, Japan and Europe just bought an estimate of 55% of all Wii consoles manufactured for the whole world!
Honestly, I’m already at a lost for words…
Now, between Europe and Japan, I must say that the Europeans won in terms of Wii sales just because it’s a whole continent versus a single country filled with crazy people (Japan). But these are still very impressive figures since Nintendo support has been focused on Japan ever since its birth, and from what I have read, Nintendo even treats its European consumers like crap, so I guess this news is reason enough for them to give more support to the European market, no?
Besides the fact that they are very rich people too! 
We all knew there would be more classic consoles coming to the Virtual Console at some point. Neo Geo was already added a while ago and now it looks like Sega is stepping up its game by giving Japanese gamers the chance to download Master System, Mark III and Game Gear games soon. Master System titles will begin appearing on the Japanese Virtual Console some time in February with Fist of the North Star (600 Wii points) and Fantasy Zone (500 Wii points). Don’t fear, IGN is also reporting that all three system’s games will become available in the U.S. and Europe too, though no exact dates have been released yet.
If you’re like me, you were a normal kid and didn’t really hear about Sega until the Genesis hit our shores with it’s incredible Blast processing (it’s OK to speak of Sega on a Nintendo site now, right?) so you never really go the chance to play some of the amazing games that came out on the Master System. I’m really looking forward to actually being able to get my hands on games like Alex Kidd, Wonderboy, and Phantasy Star without resorting to hunting down an increasingly rare Master System. Add to this some of the incredible games that came out on Game Gear and you’ve got even more classic games to pile onto the already impressive pile of must buys that the Virtual Console possesses.
One month, one million. That is a pretty impressive feat for any game, let alone one that dives headfirst into such untested grounds as videogame fitness as Wii Fit does. Wii Fit has become a very major hit in Japan, reports Japan’s business news source Nikkei, selling over one million WiiFit packages (the game and balance board together) as of Jan. 6. Unlike many of my more cynical gaming friends, I can’t wait to get my hands on this and see if it can actaully whip me back into some sort of decent shape. Reports from Japan make it seem pretty fun and show it as working well but we won’t know till later this year when the Wii Fit comes to US shores. Even if excersing does turn out to be a lame duck we can always keep our fingers crossed that companies will actaully use the board for some really innovative games like, say, a Back to the Future hover board game. Am I the only one who would be excited for that? Guys? Come on!
[Via GameIndustry.biz]
Bucky | January 29, 2008
