Nintendo says Wii sales got boost on Black Friday

[December 01, 2010]  NEW YORK (AP) -- In a told-you-so moment for Nintendo, sales of the Wii console are picking up, with 600,000 of them sold in the U.S. last week, according to the company.

Nintendo Co. said Tuesday it sold 900,000 units of the DS handheld gaming system during that time. Put another way, the Japanese video game company said U.S. shoppers bought about 9,000 Nintendo systems every hour during the week of Black Friday. It did not provide international sales figures.

Sales of the Wii have dropped this year as shoppers opted for high-definition consoles from Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. And the yen's strength against the dollar cut into the company's bottom line. But Nintendo has maintained it will do well during the holidays, as it always does.

Nintendo's products are geared less toward hardcore gamers and more toward family customers, who will spend a bigger chunk of their discretionary budget at Christmas, Hudson Square analyst Daniel Ernst said.

Sony, meanwhile, said it has sold 4.1 million units of the Move motion controller worldwide since it went on sale in the U.S. in September for most regions except Japan, where it hit store shelves in October. But these numbers don't reflect retail sales to individual consumers -- only to retailers.

And Microsoft said Monday that it sold 2.5 million Kinect gaming sensors since Nov. 4. The company did not say how many of these were sold as standalone units as opposed to bundles with the Xbox 360 video game console. Microsoft is hoping that the Kinect, which lets players control games using their bodies, hand gestures and voices, will broaden the reach of the Xbox.

[Associated Press; By BARBARA ORTUTAY]

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