The Nintendo Wii again dominated holiday game console sales, with more than 1 million units sold in the U.S. prior to Christmas. During the same time period, Microsoft sold 535,806 Xbox 360 units and Sony sold just 239,576 PlayStation 3 console units.
Retailer Amazon.com, from Nov. 15 through Dec. 19, had Wii sales easily outselling both the Xbox and PS3 -- and the Wii was one of the site's best selling products leading up to Christmas. During the turbulent shopping period, Amazon's success was largely in part due to the Wii's seemingly recession-proof sales status.
Although it was possible to see Wii consoles in stock in US stores prior to Black Friday, they quickly vanished as Christmas rolled around.
Away from the consoles, and outside of Japan, the Nintendo DS handheld sold around 1 million units, with the Wii trailing, selling 700,000 units. The Xbox 3600 sold 383,000 units and the PS3 was in last place with 246,000 total unit sales during the week.
Nintendo is expected to pass three million Wii units sold in the month of December alone, which is an impressive number, especially considering there is a global economy slump at the moment.
Nintendo has been able to keep the same $249 retail price tag without lowering the console's price, and the addition of a video on demand service should help the Japanese company further boost sales moving forward in 2009.
