Now that all three of the console manufacturers have cut prices, you might be tempted to think we won’t see additional reductions for a while. That’s far from certain, though.

Microsoft has already shown some flexibility on its pricing with a $50 rebate on any Xbox 360 Elite purchase before Oct. 5. And one key industry analyst thinks that could be a test balloon for upcoming cuts, sooner than anyone was expecting. 

Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Morgan Securities, predicts we’ll see more price shifting around the Xbox 360 as early as January – possibly February, depending on how successful the holiday season is.

Pachter believes Microsoft will cut the price of the Xbox 360 Elite with a 120 GB hard drive to $249 early next year, as it introduces an upgraded Elite version with a 250 GB hard drive for $299.

That pricing, he says, should continue until holiday 2010 – when Microsoft will dump the Arcade version of the system (which does not have a hard drive) and reduce the price of the system with a 120 GB hard drive to $199.

“With that, you’ve got a really great $200 console,” he says. “That’s a huge advantage over Sony.”

It’s speculative, of course, but Pachter has a pretty good track record. And keep in mind that Microsoft will be aggressively attempting to push Project Natal into people’s lives by late next year.

The bigger question is if this does happen as he predicts, can Sony afford to further reduce the price of the PS3? And, even if it can, will it? Two substantial price cuts in one year for the system could shorten its life cycle, something Sony would like to extend for as long as possible.

Mario might want to start looking over his shoulder. The “Wii Sports” franchise is fast becoming the company’s go-to money-maker.

“Wii Sports Resort” has sold over 1 million copies in the U.S. in less than a month, according to Nintendo. The game has also crossed the 1 million mark in Japan and Europe.

Part of the appeal, of course, is the included Wii MotionPlus accessory. It appears, though, that the game is also driving sales of the stand-alone accessory (so all players in the house will have the same precision in their controllers). Nintendo says it has distributed more than 2 million of the MotionPlus add-ons (including those included in the “Wii Sports Resort” and “Tiger Woods” bundles).

Nintendo has been counting heavily on “Wii Sports Resort” to turn things around for the year. Hardware sales have stalled this year and the lack of big Wii games has caused the company to lose some of its retail momentum.

Many analysts believe it will have to cut the price of the Wii to maintain its position as the top-selling console this holiday. Nintendo has denied plans to do so, saying the strength of its line-up in the back half of the year will be sufficient.

The “Wii Sport Resort” sales numbers tend to back that up – but as excitement builds for the slimmed down PS3 and a Xbox 360 cut seemingly imminent, Nintendo will have a tough time resisting the call to lower prices.

It's always interesting when companies that very rarely talk to the press suddenly start aggressively doing so.

Case in point: Nintendo of America, which generally has a corporate policy to never say anything interesting to a journalist, talking to two major game blogs after the most recent NPD report showed that "Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars" bombed in its first month on sale.

VP of licensing and head of third party publisher relations Steve Singer spoke to MTV Multiplayer; VP of corporate affairs Denise Kaigler talked to Kotaku.

Their message: Everything is fine here. No need to worry.

They certainly have some valid points. Kaigler noted that "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" for the DS sold only 36,000 units its first month, but in the 16 months hence has moved a decent 500,000 units. Singer said that "Spore" and "Lego Star Wars" had similar sales curves where they sold the vast majority of their units after the first month (unlike, say, "Grand Theft Auto IV").

But the very fact that these two are out talking, instead of just letting Rockstar and its owner Take-Two defend the game's performance, belies their seeming confidence. When Nintendo executives talk, they have a good reason. Here, they clearly want to send a message to hard core gamers and third party developers: Big franchises and M-rated games can work on the DS, despite the evidence to the contrary. Don't give up on us. We want to expand the DS(i) to as large an audience as possible and rake in as much licensing revenue from a wide variety of games as we can. That requires dispelling the (well justified) stereotype that our portable console is only for kids and casual players.

So we know what their message is. But is it accurate? It's a stretch, to say the least. Singer seems to be missing the point when he makes comparisons to "Spore" and "Lego Star Wars." Those games were both rated E.

I don't think anybody believes that big franchises can't work on the DS. After all, Mario and Zelda are both pretty big franchises. Even the critically derided "Guitar Hero: On Tour" did well.

The problem, most of us think, is that "Chinatown Wars" was rated M. And a very hard M at that. "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" is the best comparison, but even that game was rated T. Shooting people in war is very different than dealing drugs and killing cops.

In addition, "Chinatown Wars" got much better reviews than any of those three games.

There are 26.3 million DS's in the U.S., more than the 360 and PS3 combined and almost twice the number of PSPs. In its first two weeks, "Chinatown Wars" sold 97% fewer units than "GTA IV" did in its first five days. And the new game had an 83% larger potential audience.

Of course we would expect console versions of "GTA" to sell better, since they're bigger and better and similar to what gamers love. But even the two "GTA" games for PSP, as I previously reported, sold more than "Chinatown Wars" in their first months to much smaller hardware bases.

If "Chinatown Wars" really does follow the same sales pattern as "Modern Warfare," it could do OK. That would put it on track to sell over 1.2 million units. But that's still not a "Pokemon"-size blockbuster.

The fact is, "Chinatown Wars" had everything going for it: A very well known brand, amazing reviews, and a big marketing campaign. Those should all add up to a big launch. But they didn't. Are you willing to bet there are a million adult owners of a DS who weren't interested in "Chinatown Wars" last month but will buy it at some point in the future? I'm not.

It was the biggest question at GDC: What do you think of OnLive? Will it work?

Given the major companies (EA, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Warner Bros.) behind it, OnLive is certainly not vaporware like the Phantom. It has solid technology and a business plan that could work. If the service runs as smoothly when it launches next Winter as it did in OnLive's GDC booth, it should have a fighting chance, especially amongst consumers who haven't yet bought an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 (and most certainly by the time the big three launch their next consoles).

Regardless of whether OnLive is a hit, subscription-based or ad-supported video games are the future business model for the industry, just as it is for software and other forms of entertainment. Once consumers become comfortable not "owning" anything the way they do now, the insanity of buying a new console or version of Microsoft Office every few years will become apparent.

That transformation will mark a remarkable shift of power in the video game industry. No longer will Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony be the center of the industry, defining technical specs and getting a cut of almost every dollar spent. The new center of power will likely be the cable and telecom companies that provide Internet and television service.

Remember when TiVo came out and the early DVR lovers bought its box? Today, TiVo is dying and most of us get TiVo-like service from our cable or satellite provider, via a set top box with a DVR built in. Instead of buying hardware for several hundred dollars, we just pay Comcast or Dish an extra $5 or $10 per month.

February video game sales data was just released today and all the data, including the top 10 titles, console sales, and industry growth, are below. But here are your key points:

The industry is slowing, but still growing despite the recession

It's nothing close to the phenomenal 34% growth of the U.S. video game business last year. But 10% when the rest of the economy is contracting is still quite impressive. And software and hardware are contributing virtually evenly to the mix -- a good sign that the hardware cycle isn't slowing and that current gamers aren't cutting back disproportionately on buying new titles.

Microsoft had a good comparison, Sony had a bad one

The 54% jump in Xbox 360 sales is impressive. But you have to remember that last February Xbox 360 sales were dismal, due largely to supply constraints post-holiday and in anticipation of "Grand Theft Auto IV." This past Fall's price cut helped too of course. But nothing as amazing as that 54% number would indicate actually happened for Microsoft. It's just back to where it should be.

Sony, meanwhile, had a decent month, given its recent problems. Sales were almost flat, despite the fact that the PS3 sold unusually well last February (thanks in part to the then-recent victory of Blu-ray, as well as the 360's supply problems). Still, I'm sure Sony would love to see PS3 sales actually grow for a change. The PSP, meanwhile, continues to suffer. No wonder Sony's pushing aggressively for big new titles like "Hannah Montana," "Assassin's Creed," and "LittleBigPlanet" on the device.

 Killzone 2, Street Fighter IV both had solid launches

323,000 units in fifth place isn't bad for a PS3 exclusive that launched on the last Friday of the month. Quite good, in fact.

And Capcom kicked ass, at least as far as February releases go, with "Street Fighter IV," selling 849,000 units across the two high-end consoles. By contrast, Capcom's big sequel last February, "Devil May Cry 4," sold 528,700 on the same platforms.

FEAR 2 and 50 Cent, not so much

Warner Bros.' heavily hyped "FEAR 2: Project Origin," it's first stab at a non-licensed title for the  hard-core market, flopped. Despite launching early in the month, both the PS3 nor 360 versions sold less than 136,000 units. There are all sorts of possible reasons, most notably that in the current economy mid-level hard core titles simply aren't selling. But it's still a bad sign for the studios' ambitions to compete with major publishers that a sequel with relatively good reviews couldn't do better.

"50 Cent: Blood on the Sand," had the same problem, though it did launch late in the month. Still, THQ's expectations may have been more modest, since it bought the former Sierra title from Activision at what was likely a sizable discount off the full development cost.

Remember Nintendo? They're still dominating

There were no major new Nintendo releases, but that didn't slow the House of Mario down too much. It still claimed five of the top 10 games, with another, "Guitar Hero: World Tour" breaking into the top 10 only with its Wii version. Notably, the newest Nintendo game on the top 10, was at #1, "Wii Fit." It's "only" nine months old. "Mario Kart DS," meanwhile, is on the top 10 over three years after its debut.

And the Wii, once again, topped the market, growing 74% -- helped, of course, by easing supply. DS sales were flat, but still well ahead of every other console except the Wii.

The biggest business story of 2008 in the world of vidoegames was, without a doubt, the success of Nintendo. Followed closely by the struggles of Sony. The Wii and DS beat the PS3 and PSP, respectively, by a factor of nearly three in unit sales last year. Games published by the house of Mario took five of the spots on NPD's year end top ten sales chart, while nothing published by Sony, or for its consoles, made the list.

Which is why it's so striking to look at the nominees for the Game Developers Choice Awards today and see Nintendo completely and utterly shut out. Sony, meanwhile, had the most nominations of any publisher (12), the most nominations for games exclusive to its consoles (14), and tied for the most games nominated available for its consoles (25).

Apparently the people who make games do not agree with the public about who's leading the industry. (Which, I think, adds credence to my arguments that Sony is getting too artsy for its own good and Nintendo games are like "Paul Blart: Mall Cop").

Looking through the 50 GDC nominations (ten categories, five picks each), it's amazing that there's only one game developed or published by Nintendo ("Advance Wars: Day of Ruin"). In fact, just seven of the 50 nods went to games that are even available on the DS or Wii. 25 are available on PS3, 25 for Xbox 360 (how convenient), 19 for PC, three for DS and three for PSP.

The Best Handheld Game category is particularly revealing. Even though the DS handily outsells the PSP and has significantly more software, three of the five nominated games are for PSP, two for DS.

The story's the same when it comes to exclusives. Only four nods, one each for "Boom Blox," "Soul Bubbles," "Advance Wars: Days of Ruin" and "The World Ends with You," went to games exclusive to Nintendo consoles. By contrast, there were eight nods for Xbox 360 exclusives ("Gears 2," "Fable 2" and "Braid") and 14 for PS3 or PSP ("LittleBigPlanet," "MGS 4," "Patapon," "God of War: Chains of Olympus," "Echochrome," and "PixelJunk Eden").

The three best selling games released in 2008, "Wii Fit," "Mario Kart Wii," and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl," all of which were published by Nintendo, were completely shut out.

It's not that the GDC nominees are a bunch of obscure indie titles. Game of the Year picks "Grand Theft Auto IV," "Fable 2," "Fallout 3," "Left 4 Dead" and "LittleBigPlanet" are all heavily hyped and, with the exception of "LBP," solid or exceptional sellers. This is hardly like the Oscars, overloaded as it is with movies like "The Reader," "Milk," "Frozen River," and "Doubt," that few people have even heard of, let alone seen.

But still, there's an evident divergence between what's selling and what's being celebrated. Is it a bad thing? I don't personally think so. I would quibble with plenty of particular nominations, but overall the GDC nominators made very respectable -- if somewhat safe -- choices. The simple fact is that Nintendo didn't do particularly innovative or exciting work last year. And third party publishers, with a few  exceptions, didn't do their best work for the DS or Wii. In part because the industry has been slow to adjust the the success of the Wii. And in part because you can simply do more on the PS3 and 360.

And we can't forget the impact of one game, Sony's PS3 exclusive "LittleBigPlanet," which took seven of the 50 nominations despite being something of a bust commercially (it sold just 611,000 units last year, per NPD).

This could very well be the trend going forward, at least for this console generation. It sure seems to me that the games that hardcore players, the press, and the industry are excited about in 2009 are mostly for PC/PS3/360.

More on some of the specific picks later. For now, here are the nominees (per Gamasutra, which presents the GDC awards):

Best Game Design
Far Cry 2(Ubisoft Montreal)
Braid (Number None)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Visual Art
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Prince Of Persia (Ubisoft Montreal)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Technology
Spore (Maxis)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Writing
Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft Montreal)
Braid (Number None)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)

Best Audio
Dead Space (EA Redwood Shores)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (Kojima Productions)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
Gears Of War 2 (Epic Games)

Best Debut
Braid (Number None)
Sins Of A Solar Empire (Ironclad Games)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
Soul Bubbles (Mekensleep)

Innovation
Spore (Maxis)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
Boom Blox (EA Los Angeles)
Braid (Number None)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)

Best Handheld
Patapon (Pyramid/SCE Japan)
Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin (Intelligent Systems)
God Of War: Chains Of Olympus (Ready At Dawn Studios)
Echochrome (SCE Japan)
The World Ends With You (Jupiter/Square Enix)

Best Downloadable Game
Castle Crashers (The Behemoth)
Braid (Number None)
World Of Goo (2D Boy)
N+ (Metanet/Slick Entertainment)
Pixeljunk Eden (Q-Games)

Game of the Year
Fable 2 (Lionhead Studios)
LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
Fallout 3 (Bethesda Game Studios)
Left 4 Dead (Valve Software)
Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar North)

It’s no surprise, after seeing the 2008 NPD numbers, that the videogame segment of Sony’s earnings today were pretty dismal, while Nintendo’s were pretty fantastic. Just as in the U.S., Playstation 3 worldwide sales declined during the quarter ended Dec. 31 -- 9 % to be exact, to 4.46 million -- which is decidedly not good for a two year old console. Nintendo Wii sales, meanwhile, surged 50% worldwide to 10.41 million. (Microsoft, we previously learned, sold 6 million Xbox 360 consoles last quarter, up 28%.)

However Sony did point to one positive: a 57% jump in PS3 software sales. But software sales only matter compared to the total number of consoles (a ratio known as the attach rate). And after working that out, we find that the PS3 has virtually the same attach rate as the Wii. Meaning Sony really has nothing to brag about.

By Dec. 31, the PS3’s worldwide install base was 21.39 million, about double what it was last year. The Wii’s grew 123% to just under 45 million. On the software side, Nintendo and other publishers sold 82.4 million Wii games in the quarter ending Dec. 31, up 74%, while Sony et al sold 40.6 million PS3 games, up 57%. The comparative software sales growth rates for the quarter almost exactly mirror the comparative growth in the two consoles’ install bases.

So if software sales compared to hardware sales are growing at the same rate, are they ending up anywhere different? Nope. Sony says 40.6 million PS3 games were sold last quarter, or 1.89 for every console on the market. Consumers bought 82.4 million Wii games, or 1.83 per piece of hardware. Almost identical.

(Microsoft, alas, doesn’t reveal its worldwide software sales. And while it has traditionally had a very strong attach rate in the U.S., it’s tough to know how it all ads up when you combine that with the weak Japanese market and Europe.)

Playstation 3 owners might be willing to shell out more for a console, it turns out, but they’re not buying more games (though they are, to be fair, spending about $10 more per game). Microsoft has the advantage, in the U.S. at least, of a much higher attach rate than its competitors. Sony doesn’t have that. It’s third place in consoles and tied with its biggest competitor in comparative software sales. And compared to Microsoft, it’s not making nearly as much money online (since Sony doesn’t charge for subscriptions or run ads). Which means after two years, Sony still has a fundamental problem to solve: What is the business advantage of the PS3 over its competitors?

(Sony also has a problem in common with Nintendo: the devastating impact of the strong Japanese Yen on earnings. That's one of several reasons why struggling Sony has had to cut earnings forecasts, but the only reason why otherwise prospering Nintendo did the same.)

In Hollywood we're very used to the concept of the "review-proof" and even the "unreviewable" movies -- ones about which reviewers struggle to say anything relevant that perform extremely well commercially. This past weekend's $39 million grosser "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" springs to mind. As do some of the biggest movies of the past few years, like "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "Twilight," "Transformers," Pirates of the Caribbean 3"... You know what I'm talking about. They may get reviewed, but reluctantly, and there's rarely much in the way of follow-up discussion and online buzz the way there is about, say, "Slumdog Millionnaire" or "The Wrestler."

I always thought that videogames were different. Most of the top sellers were usually games thoroughly discussed by reviewers (and, more recently, bloggers), usually very positively. As recently as last year, four of the top 5 titles (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero II, Super Mario Galaxy) fall exactly in that category. Out of the top ten, "Wii Play," "Mario Party 8," and maybe "Pokemon Diamond" were games that didn't exactly have critics buzzing.

Even three games seems like a lot, historically speaking, But this year, and this holiday season especially, I think, the number of top selling videogames that simply eluded critics exploded. Here's NPD's top 20 games of December, ranked and followed by the number of reviews each title received in Metacritic (that doesn't include everything, of course, but for comparison's sake, it's a good sense of what videogame critics are talking about):

Notice a trend? Eight of the the ten least reviewed games are for Nintendo consoles. Only five of the top ten and two of the top five are (and two came out more than a year ago, making them only arguably relevant).

Then there's the vaguer issue of buzz. I can't quantify it, but I'm willing to argue that videogame bloggers, message board posters, etc. were talking a lot more about "Fallout," "Gears," "Call of Duty," "Left 4 Dead" and even titles that sold beneath the top 20 like "Dead Space," "Mirror's Edge," "Prince of Persia" and "LittleBigPlanet" than almost all of these Nintendo games.

The simple reason is that most of these Nintendo titles are either the umpteenth revision of very familiar formulas ("Mario Kart," "Animal Crossing") or "games" that aren't really games, at least in the sense that we critics and writers usually think and talk about them ("Wii Fit," "Wii Music," "Personal Trainer: Cooking," etc.) And then there's the multi-platform titles like "Call of Duty," "Shaun White Snowboarding" and "Guitar Hero" for which we clearly prefer to review and discuss the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

It's a growing trend, but again, I feel like it really exploded this year as, for various reasons I and others have discussed, Nintendo took control of the sales charts and did so with a very different slate of titles. Last December, by contrast, videogame critics and writers were eagerly discussing four of the top five titles ("CoD 4," "Super Mario Galaxy," "Guitar Hero III," "Assassin's Creed") and a much bigger percentage of the top 20 (see for yourself).

 I don't really have a proscriptive take on all this. Should we find more to say about "Wii Fit" and "Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force?" (Hey, Variety reviewed it!) Well, if all artistic criticism mirrored the sales charts, that would be a sad thing for our culture. Should we review the Wii version of multi-platform franchises more often? Perhaps, but if it doesn't have as many features as PS3 or 360, that seems a bit bizarre (at least for publications like Variety without the resources to review multiple versions).

It may in fact be a good thing. The videogame industry is maturing and we need our review-proof blockbusters just as much as we need everything else. It's also, perhaps, no coincidence that 2008 was also the year that we saw an explosion of interest in, discussion about, and a business model coalescing around independent games. The market may simply be expanding and some parts of it need critical attention more than others.

I had thought that when NPD sent out its list of the top 20 games of December, (with no sales figures for 11-20, as is traditional), we might see some of those big non-Nintendo games from the holidays that didn't make the top ten (on which six games were for Wii or DS).

But instead, the evidence points even more to utter Nintendo domination. Of games no. 11 through 20 sold in the U.S. in December, seven were for Wii or DS and four were published by the house of Mario itself.

Sometimes I think these facts are hard for those of us who write about games, or play them "hard core," to get our minds around, so I want to emphasize them carefully:

Also of note on the top 20 beyond Nintendo:

-Disney's "Club Penguin" DS game scored a very impressive no. 15 Now that it owns the virtual world and this first effort was such a success, we can expect to see plenty more "Club Penguin" videogame spin offs (and hey, this first effort wasn't too bad, according to Variety's Chris Dahlen)

-"Guitar Hero: World Tour" sold better on PS2 than 360 or PS3 (but not, of course, Wii). It was the only PS2 game in the top 20. Now that's a maintream franchise. And it's still beating "Rock Band 2," which didn't make the top 20 in any form.

Let's not forget the high profile games released in November and December that didn't manage to make the top 20:

Here's the full top 20, with sales figures for the top 10:

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in Dec.  Release date

Wii Play                    Wii           Nintendo        1.46 million          Feb 12, 2007

Call of Duty 5            360           Activision       1.33 million          Nov. 10

Wii Fit                      Wii           Nintendo        999,000               May 19

Mario Kart                Wii            Nintendo        979,000               April 27

Guitar Hero: WT        Wii           Activision       850,000               Oct. 28

Gears of War 2         360           Microsoft       745,000                Nov. 7

Left 4 Dead              360           EA/Valve        629,000                Nov. 18

Mario Kart                DS            Nintendo        540,000               Nov. 14, 2005

Call of Duty 5           PS3           EA                533,000               Nov. 10

Animal Crossing...    Wii           Nintendo         497,000              Nov. 16

Wii Music                Wii           Nintendo             -                      Oct. 20

New Super Mario...   DS           Nintendo            -                      May 15, 2006

...Trainer: Cooking    DS           Nintendo             -                      Nov. 24

Fallout 3                  360           Bethesda           -                       Oct. 28

Club Penguin...        DS           Disney               -                       Nov. 25

Links's Crossbow...  Wii            Nintendo            -                       Nov. 19

Guitar Hero: WT       PS2          Activision           -                       Oct. 28

Madden '09              360           EA                   -                        Aug. 12

Call of Duty 5           Wii           Activision           -                       Nov. 10

Shaun White...        Wii           Ubisoft               -                        Nov. 16

I think the overwhelming predominance of Nintendo games on this list, and the fact that so many of them are titles that those of us in the gaming press and blogosphere just don't talk about, is a really important fact. One that I'll probably have more to say about on Monday.

I just changed the title of this post (thus the different url for you nitpickers out there) for one simple reason: After thinking about the new NPD data for a little while, that strikes me as the real story.

Despite the ongoing recession, the videogame industry had a grew 19% in 2008, a figure most any other industry, especially every other sector of media, would envy.

But there's no denying that figure is being hurt by the recession. In October, the biz grew 18%; November, 10%; December, just 9%. Just a year ago, in December of 2007, the U.S. videogame biz grew an astonishing 28%. It's looking very likely that industry is looking at single digit growth in 2009.

Almost every major company is feeling the pain of the economic downturn to one extent or another. All the big publishers have admitted in recent investor calls that they are retail traffic and ordering grow more conservative. Electronic Arts, the nation's biggest publisher, had to warn it wouldn't hit earnings targets.

And then there's Sony. The latest NPD data is just plain dismal for the Playstation maker and explains why it's likely on the verge of major layoffs. Forget slowing growth -- sales for the PS3 and PSP actually declined in December compared to a year ago, the second month in a row that happened. All those great reviews for "LittleBigPlanet" and the victory of Blu-ray and the "Ratchet and Clank" PSP entertainment pack just didn't make a difference. Though total PS3 sales did grow a healthy 40% from the terrible 2007 figures, the console remains mired far behind 360 and Wii with virtually no chance of catching up (here's one theory why).

So with all those problems, how is the industry even doing as well as it is? One word: Nintendo. Wii sales boomed 62% this year, breaking NPD's all-time record by selling more than 10 million units. DS grew 17%, coming in just a hair behind the Wii with 9.95 million. Both figures are more than the 360 and PS3 combined.

The story's the same in games. Five of the top ten games of the year were for DS and Wii and all five were published by Nintendo itself. And things are only getting better. Six of the top ten in December were for those platforms with five published by the "Mario" maker itself.

For those of us interested in the wide variety of innovative, interesting games released on all five consoles (and PC!), it's important to keep this fact in mind: In a year that featured new releaes like "Dead Space," "LittleBigPlanet," "Fallout 3," "Far Cry 2," and "Metal Gear Solid 4," none of those games sold more than 1.65 million units domestically (in a single sku, anyway) and made the top ten.

Particularly notable is the staying power of Nintendo's games (as I noted last month, it really does have the best legs in the videogame biz). While every game from competing publishers in December's top 10 chart was released in October or November, Nintendo had two games release in the spring, one in 2007, and another -- the astonishing "Mario Kart" DS -- came out in November of 2005.

Microsoft remains right in the middle. 360 sales grew 2% in 2008. It continued to boast strong sales for its biggest franchises -- "Gears of War 2" sold over 2.3 million units -- and very strong third party sales, with three of the top ten games third party titles for the 360. It may be losing that advantage, though, as the Wii ended up with the most third party third party games sold in December for the second month in a row.

More thoughts coming soon, no doubt. Meanwhile, here's the data to ponder yourselves:

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in Dec.  Release date

Wii Play                    Wii           Nintendo        1.46 million          Feb 12, 2007

Call of Duty 5            360           Activision       1.33 million          Nov. 10

Wii Fit                          Wii           Nintendo        999,000               May 19

Mario Kart                Wii            Nintendo        979,000               April 27

Guitar Hero: WT        Wii           Activision       850,000               Oct. 28

Gears of War 2         360           Microsoft       745,000                Nov. 7

Left 4 Dead              360           EA/Valve        629,000                Nov. 18

Mario Kart                DS            Nintendo        540,000               Nov. 14, 2005

Call of Duty 5           PS3           EA                533,000               Nov. 10

Animal Crossing...    Wii           Nintendo         497,000              Nov. 16

Game                      Console     Publisher     Units sold in 2008  Release date

Wii Play                   Wii            Nintendo        5.28 million          Feb 12, 2007                                   

Mario Kart                Wii            Nintendo        5 million               April 27                                        

Wii Fit                      Wii           Nintendo        4.53 million           May 19                                        

Smash Bros...        Wii            Nintendo        4.17 million           Mar. 9                                          

GTA IV                    360           Rockstar        3.29 million           Apr. 29

Call of Duty 5           360           Activision       2.75 million           Nov. 10

Gears of War 2         360           Microsoft       2.31 million            Nov. 7

GTA IV                    PS3          Rockstar        1.89 million           Apr. 29

Madden NFL '09       360           EA                1.87 million           Aug. 12

Mario Kart                DS           Nintendo        1.65 million           Nov. 14, 2005

Console       Dec. unit sales  Growth   2008 units sales  Growth     Lifetime-to-date
DS              3.04 million         23%      9.95 million         17%             26.6 million
Wii              2.15 million         59%     10.17 million        62%             16.6 million                                 
360             1.44 million         14%      4.7 million           2%               13.9 million
PSP            1 million            -4%        3.8 million           0%              14.2 million
PS3             726,000             -9%       3.5 million          40%              6.8 million                             

Category             Dec. revenue   Change     2008 revenue       Change
Total industry     $5.29 billion        9%       $21.33 billion          19%
Hardware           $1.88 billion        2%       $7.81 billion            11%
Software            $2.75 billion       15%       $10.96 billion          26%
Accessories       $662 million        8%       $2.57 billion            14%

(Thanks to Justin Kroll for help compiling data. And apologies if the charts don't look good on your browser. I did my best!)

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

These are not games we thought were bad, or even disappointing. They're the videogames that Variety's critics found fell the shortest of what most other critics and/or the public thought. It also, interestingly, the only category in this whole process in which all four of us agree about a game.

Chris Dahlen

Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar / Rockstar North)

It’s a lie to say that sandbox games let the player “do anything they want”; they still have an underlying vision, as we saw in "Fallout 3." So what’s "GTA IV’s" vision? That the American Dream ain’t perfect? That consumerism infects our lives? That talk radio lies to us? This is dimestore cynicism. It’s easy to admire the parts – the drunk effects, the jazz fusion station, the consistently interesting mission design, the Ricky Gervais cameo, and the way the cars go so much faster when you hit the highlife. But the sum ain’t there.

LittleBigPlanet (Sony / Media Molecule)

A niche game for budding game designers, disguised as an all-ages, endless dreamscape. And here’s a question: why do the games that bet big on user-generated content consistently expect users to dive into specialized skills such as platformer level design, puzzlecrafting, or 3-D modeling, when the two types of content that real life people actually put on the web – text, and photographs – are neglected?

Castle Crashers (The Behemoth)

It’s not like me to bash an indie. But "Castle Crashers’" single-player campaign was repetitive and undistinguished, and four-player co-op was good for maybe an hour – an hour that’s now better spent with "Left4Dead."

Ben Fritz

Fallout 3 ( Bethesda Softworks / Bethesda)

When fans rattle off all the awesome things they saw and did in “Fallout 3,” I can hardly argue. But I don’t understand why all the tedious, old-fashioned RPG tasks in between don’t bother them more. Whether I’m agonizing over how to distribute all my points and perks after finding out I made a bunch of bad choices the last time I leveled up, working through a dialogue tree with one of the information repositories known as “people,” struggling with the mediocre combat, or just trying to find the stuff I need so I can move on, 80% of “Fallout 3” is a slog to get to the 20% that’s actually worth experiencing.

LittleBigPlanet (Sony / Media Molecule)

The ultimate problem with “LittleBigPlanet” is that it’s impressive, but nothing more. Wow, sackboy is cute. Damn, those level-building tools are remarkably easy to use. Holy cow, that user created level looks just like a working calculator / a lamborghini / “Duck Hunt” / “God of War.” But there’s nothing remotely engaging about the experience, unless you’re in that small minority with dozens of hours to kill and the desire to make an awesome platforming level.

Patapon (Sony / Sony)

The fact that you push four buttons to a beat and everything's really cute doesn't make up for the fact that this is a painfully simple RTS with absolutely no substance.

Leigh Alexander

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo / Level 5)

Why are charming little animations an excuse to glorify the sort of dull school workbook designed expressly to validate Mensa wannabes?

LittleBigPlanet (Sony / Media Molecule)

It's adorable, I'm heartened by the vision behind it and couldn't be more impressed with Media Molecule and its beautiful execution. But at the end of the day, I'm a fan of video games because I want the professionals to make them for me. I don't want to make video games, I don't really care what my "friends from the Internet" have made, and I often wonder how many people really do care -- and how many people just leapt on board the bandwagon of positive sentiment surrounding an effort they admired. 

Tom Chick

Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar / Rockstar North)

One of the most amazing realizations of a real-world-ish place and one of my favorite games this year. Also the setting for a poorly told
story and uninspired gameplay, and the subject of a system-shattering
PC port.

LittleBigPlanet (Sony / Media Molecule)

Awesome graphics! And those little sack people are so cute I could just eat them up! Now where's the game? 

Braid (Number None)

This is not a game that moves and it's not very accessible. You need to have a stomach for old-school platformers and mental brick walls. Which is a shame, because the place Braid eventually goes is sublime.

Coming Monday morning: The best videogame(s) of 2008

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

Chris Dahlen

Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo / Level 5)

I love solving puzzles. I love being patted on the head when I get one right. And I love a game that will give me little, helpful hints but never hand me the answer, no matter how much I beg.

Ben Fritz

de Blob (THQ / Blue Tongue)

This unlikely translation of a Dutch student project into a AAA American release is the most unjustly overlooked videogame of the year, both critically and commercially. Its embrace of color and music over gray monotony may be simple, but it’s the infusion of those aesthetics into the gameplay, so that the visual and aural richness of the world grows along with the player’s progress, that makes “de Blob” so impressive and infectious.

Leigh Alexander

PixelJunk Eden (Sony / Q Games)

Quickly glance at its undulating colors, ambient techno and iconic floral design (which I wholly believe is ripped off in the graphic design for some current Sears ads) and it's easy to dismiss "PixelJunk Eden" as an "art" game. In fact, it's deceptively accessible in its simplicity, sometimes deliciously frustrating, and often luminously trance-inducing. Its taut design subtly graduates the player into ever more expansive challenges and provides a real sense of growth and unfurling along the way.

Tom Chick

EndWar (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Shanghai)

Okay, I'm going to get wonky here. "EndWar" is not your normal real time strategy game, and not just because it finally cracks the code for how to play an RTS on a console system (The key? Voice commands!). "EndWar" is a gamble. In fact, I think it misreads the appeal of the genre. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this turned out to be a commercial fiasco for Ubisoft. But that's what you risk when you cannily rework how real time strategy games play. "EndWar" is about moving pieces on a board and psyching out your opponent. It's about knowing when to push and when to give. It's about carefully upgrading your units over the course of a perhaps too dynamic campaign. This is one of the most subversive game designs of the year for how it takes the fussy action movie motif of a typical RTS and recasts it as an elegant European board game. If Reiner Knizia made RTSs, this is the one he'd make. See, I told you I was going to get wonky.

Coming this afternoon: The fourth best videogame(s) of 2008.

(Part of our series counting down the top ten videogames of 2008 -- with interruptions for the most disappointing and most overrated -- according to Variety critics Leigh Alexander, Tom Chick, Chris Dahlen and Ben Fritz. Full details are here. To check out the rest of the list, click here. Most importantly, vote for your favorite games of 2008 in the Cut Scene reader awards here.)

"Most disappointing" does not necessarily mean the worst (after all, we don't want to shower Brash with too many prizes). Rather, these are the games that Variety's critics believe fell the furthest short of our expectations and their potential.

Ben Fritz

Wii Music (Nintendo / Nintendo)

Finally, an accessible social videogame that uses peripherals to let anyone play music. Oh wait, I’m thinking of “Guitar Hero. And “Rock Band.” And even “Ultimate Band.” "Wii Music" is an unnecessary, cacophonous mess of a game (if it even is one, not that it matters) in which most attempts at making music sound worse than an elementary school orchestra. Though I can’t say I’ll ever forget the David Lynch-esque experience of watching a cheerleader, a sitar player, and a man in a dog suit performing “Daydream Believer.”

Wall-E (THQ / Heavy Iron)

To a certain extent, this choice is a stand-in for the many lame licensed titles (“Lost: Via Domus,” “Iron Man,” everything from Brash, and on and on) that show Hollywood and game publishers still don’t really have their act together. But “Wall-E” was the most disappointing of them all because it took source material overflowing with romantic spirit and devolved it into a product so unimaginative and formulaic (Wall-E shooting a gun? Really?) it could have come straight from the film’s corporate overlords at Buy n Large.

Spore (EA / Maxis)

Perhaps I didn’t read the marketing materials right, but wasn’t "Spore" supposed to be about evolution? Nothing in this awkward mash-up of “flow,” “Civilization,” and a space rpg resembles real physical or cultural evolution, in which inherited traits and competition inescapably define a species’ fate. The irony is that the “creature creator,” which EA released for free a few months early to whet gamers’ appetite, is far and away the best part of this disappointing package.

Leigh Alexander

Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft / Ubisoft Montreal)

So gorgeous, so technically excellent, so intriguing at first -- which makes it especially crushing that under all that richly-realized Africa is yet another first-person shooter, and endless litanies of the same ambush mission over and over.

Grand Theft Auto IV (Rockstar / Rockstar North)

In many ways, it's the wildest and most poignant video game ever made -- but in most ways, it's over-weighted, illogical and emotionally manipulative, so that its ploddingly earnest storyline, its precious character tropes and its over-pretension nearly suffocate its fun and sharp cleverness

Tom Chick

Too Human (Microsoft / Silicon Knights)

Although it's an action RPG that misses the point of action RPGs, it's one of the year's only games about cyber-Vikings.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts / LucasArts)

Great story. Shame about the game. 

Haze (Ubisoft / Free Radical)

The guys who made "Goldeneye" and "Timesplitters" have come to this?

Chris Dahlen

Spore (EA / Maxis)

Like everybody, I read all the advance hype for the game. And I don’t think my disappointment in the final release stems from backlash, so much as confusion: playing through one full campaign and a couple restarts, I never felt like I saw the point, never had an intuitive understanding of any of the decisions I was making, never felt the urge to go back and try a different path, and never believed that the three key parts of the game - play, create, and share - worked together in any but the most simplistic ways. Instead of revolutionizing user generated content, it trivialized it: Yes, your hermaphrodite alligator man has very spiky eyebrows, but if they don’t impact gameplay, who cares?

Mirror's Edge (EA / Dice)

" Mirror’s Edge" frustrated and annoyed a lot of players. Its soothing aesthetic didn’t match its difficulty: imagine trying to play a game of "Rock Band," except the song stops cold every time you miss a note. Combat should’ve been truly optional, and the cheapest deaths should’ve been caught in playtesting. And yet in spite of it all, I keep coming back to it – for the almost sensual pleasures of sliding down a sheer glass wall or riding the top of a subway train, or feeling the “oomph” as Faith slings herself over yet another ledge. 

Fracture (LucasArts / Day 1 Studios)

...and a dozen other shooters with high production values, elaborate cinematics, ample headshots, and nothing else to offer. I slogged through a lot of these this year, but "Fracture" saw the biggest boost from LucasArts and the most hype for its supposedly innovative “make a pile of dirt almost anywhere you want” mechanic. So I’ll honor it as one of the year’s highest-profile duds.

Coming Monday morning: The fifth best videogame(s) of 2008

Way back two years ago when I covered box office, I became extremely familiar with the concept of "legs," which in Variety-speak means movies that perform well at the box office for a while, instead of just doing some business on their opening weekend and then quickly fading

In the videogame business, legs are rare. Most games in NPD's top 10 ranking came out that month or the previous month. Gamers, by and large, seem to know what they want and they buy it pretty quickly.

There's one big exception, however: Nintendo. The continued presence of "Mario Kart Wii" and "Wii Fit" in the top 10 every single month since they debuted (eight and seven months, respectively) is simply astounding. Then there's "Wii Play which has been in the top 10 for 22 months, though more for the extra Wii-more it comes with than the game.

I decided to take a look at "legs" in the videogame biz this year and it's amazing how much Nintendo dominates. I defined "legs" as videogames that are on NPD's top 10 two months or later after they came out. With the sole exception of "Call of Duty 4" for the 360 and a brief appearance by "Guitar Hero III" on PS2, every game with legs was for a Nintendo platform, and all but one of those were for the Wii.

Starting in February (I'll exclude January since almost nothing new came out that month), here are the games that have shown legs in 2008 and how many months they stayed in the top 10 after their first two:

Wii Play: all 10
Mario Kart Wii: six
Wii Fit: five
Call of Duty 4 (Xbox 360): three
Guitar Hero III (Wii): two
Guitar Hero: On Tour (DS): one
Guitar Hero III (PS2): one

Even some of the biggest games of the year, like "Grand Theft Auto IV" and "Madden NFL," fell out of the top 10 after their second month. "Mario Kart Wii," meanwhile, has built up an astounding 4 million plus units in the U.S. alone. "Wii Fit" has sold 3.5 million units and counting. And there's still the little matter of December left to go, when both games should see huge sales. I wouldn't be surprised to see them end up the #2 and #3 games of the year, after "Wii Play."

What's going on? As the continued dominant sales of the Wii (capped by a phenomenal 2 million units last month amidst a recession) demonstrates, Nintendo buyers are a whole different class than the traditional gamers who, by and large, are still buying the 360 and PS3.

Millions of people are buying the Wii and when they do, they're buying "Mario Kart" and "Wii Fit." Which makes sense, since those are well branded games that almost anybody can play (if that word even applies to "Wii Fit") and they're also endlessly replayable, which is probably why there's not a healthy used market for them (used copies on Amazon.com, in fact, are all well over the standard prices). It doesn't even seem to matter that "Wii Fit" costs $90, way more than your typical videogame.

The core gamer audience is still eager for the right titles, of course, as the huge launch for "Gears of War 2" shows.  But what any media company, be it a film studio or videogame publisher, wants is legs. A big launch takes a big marketing budget, but when a game is still performing six months after debut, it's mostly selling itself.

Nobody else has figured out how to do that. Sony couldn't even keep "LittleBigPlanet," which has plenty of mass appeal and replayability, in the top 20 for two months. Even the terrible "Wii Music" managed to sneak into the top ten during its second month. If it stays there in December and beyond, that's officially scary.

Nintendo has yet to announce the full song list for Wii Music, even though it comes out next week, but I  just got my copy and, conveniently, there's a list of credits in the instructions for all 14 of the the licensed songs. Not exactly competition for the track lists in "Rock Band 2" or "Guitar Hero: World Tour," but it's not meant to be.

The company previously said there are around 50 songs in "Wii Music," so we can assume all the rest are either public domain tunes or Nintendo's own theme songs. Unsurprisingly for a game that's meant to have such broad appeal, the licensed tracks are all really well known songs that have been around for a while and everyone can enjoy, if not exactly love. "Jingle Bell Rock" is about as edgy as it gets. And of course since there's no singing in "Wii Music," they're are well known melodies that you can recognize without the lyrics.

Interestingly, since the point of "Wii Music" is "playing" the song yourself, there's no issue with master recordings. So the instruction book only credits the composers and publishing companies, not the recording artists.

Take a look and see what you think:

"Chariots of Fire" theme song by Vangelis

"Daydream Believer" by John Stewart (made famous by The Monkees)

"Every Breath You Take" by Sting

"I'll be There," originally performed by The Jackson 5

"I've Never Been to Me," the classic Motown hit by Charlene

"Material Girl," which was made famous by a nice young lady named Madonna

"Please Mr. Postman," the debut single from the Marvellettes from way back in the early '60s

"September," from Earth, Wind and Fire

"Suriyaki," a Japanese song popular in the '60s performed by Kyu Sakamoto (OK, I've never heard of that one)

"The Loco-Motion," another 60s pop song that tortured young adults my age when we were kids

John Lennon's "Woman"

"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by the illustrious George Michael

"Jingle Bell Rock." We all know this one.

"Do-Re-Mi" by Rogers and Hammerstein from "The Sound of Music." (No, not the last song that Kurt Cobain wrote.)

No wonder Microsoft made a big deal yesterday of announcing that Xbox 360 is the first console to reach 10 million units in the U.S.

The folks there undoubtedly knew that today's NPD numbers would be pretty dismal. Not that they're any better for Sony. Neither console maker got any visible bump from the debut of "Grand Theft Auto IV" in April. Xbox 360 sales were down 28% from March to 188,000. PS3 sales fell 27% to 187,000.

Everyone expected that both console makers would benefit, of course. The theory is that lots of people haven't made the switch to PS3 or 360 yet, but would do so with a hugely popular game like "GTA IV" to motivate them. But while Rockstar sold 1.85 million units in the first five days on sale, almost everybody who bought one appears to already own a 360 or PS3.

By contrast, Wii sales were virtually flat at 714,000, as Nintendo moved from one big hit ("Super Smash Bros. Brawl") to another ("Mario Kart Wii"). Nothing can slow down that Wii mojo, it seems.

Of course it's possible that the early "GTA IV" buyers already have a 360 or PS3 but those who are buying it in May are more likely to be buying a console, but that's not what anybody expected. When "Halo 3" debuted in September with 12 days left on the NPD calendar, 360 sales nearly doubled from August.

It's bad news for Microsoft and Sony and calls into question whether they're already close to tapping out the audience of people willing to pay $350 or $400 for a console, no matter how good the games are.

Also worth noting are the videogames that launched in April and didn't even manage to sell the 141,000 units necessary to break into NPD's top 10. Those include THQ's ``Battle of the Bands,'' Midway's ``NBA Ballers: Chosen One,'' and D3's ``Dark Sector.''

I'll provide a link to my full Daily Variety story as soon as it's available (Hey, here it is!). Meanwhile, make what you will of the month's raw data:

Top 10 games                       Platform    Publisher    Units sold in April
1. Grand Theft Auto IV            360          Rockstar   1.85 million
2. Mario Kart Wii                    Wii          Nintendo   1.12 million
3. Grand Theft Auto IV            PS3         Rockstar    1 million
4. Wii Play                              Wii         Nintendo   360,000
5. Super Smash Bros. Brawl     Wii          Nintendo   326,000
6. Gran Turismo 5: Prologue    PS3         Sony          224,000
7. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: DS           Nintendo    202,000
    Explorers of Darkness
8. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: DS           Nintendo    202,000
    Explorers of Time
9. Guitar Hero III                    Wii         Activision   152,000
10. Call of Duty 4                    360         Activision   141,000

Hardware sales      April          Lifetime-to-date
Wii                        714,200       9.6 million
DS                         414,800       19.6 million
PSP                       192,700       11.4 million
Xbox 360               188,000       10.1 million
Playstation 3          187,100       4.3 M
Playstation 2          124,400      ?

                                 April 2008     Change from April 2007   Year-to-date     Change from 2007
Total Videogames        $1.23 B                  47%                         $5.47 B              31%
Hardware                    $426.2 M                26%                         $1.84 B              13%
Software                     $654.7 M                68%                         $2.88 B              46%
Accessories                 $154 M                   39%                         $750.6 M            29%                

(This post has been updated since I spent a little more time going through the data)

After the ass-kicking I got from Nintendo fans for daring to say a few negative things about "Super Mario Galaxy" last November, I haven't exactly been eager to review more games from that particular publisher. Not that I won't -- since I shouldn't be intimidated by a few hundred hard core fan-boys -- but I am spreading them around, which is why Matt Peckham reviewed "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" for Variety. And he gave it a really good review.

Me? Well, I haven't played the whole thing, to be fair. But I'm not a big fan of fighting games. Or button smashers. And I hate games with a big multi-player element where you have to do all sorts of stuff in single player first to unlock all the multi-player elements. Note to videogame publishers: When I am paying you $50 or $60, I expect to have access to everything advertised on the back of the box whenever I want it.

Which is why I heartily endorse this review of SSBB by Yahtzee:

Still have to sort through this all, but here's the raw data that NPD just provided for March video game sales in the U.S. First take: "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" had a HUGE month and Wii sales benefitted as well. PS3 finally got back ahead of the 360, but just barely. And both "Rainbow Six Vegas 2" and "Army of Two" had decent debuts.

Missing from the top 10 chart? Meaning they didn't debut too well: "Lost: Via Domus," "Condemned 2: Bloodshot," "Dark Sector."

                                               March 2007                  March 2008             Change

Total Video Games                    $1.1 B                          $1.7 B                     57%

Hardware                                  $377.9M                      $551.3M                  46%

Software                                   $579.1M                      $945.6M                  63%

Accessories                               $139.5M                      $220M                     58%

Hardware                       Units sold in March 2008            Units sold lifetime-to-date

PlayStation 3                          257,000                                    4.1M

PlayStation Portable                297,000                                   11.2M

Xbox 360                                262,000                                    9.9M

DS                                          697,000                                   19.2M

Wii                                         721,000                                   8.8M

PlayStation 2                          216,000                                     n/a

Top 10 video games                    Platform          Publisher                  Units sold in March

Super Smash Bros. Brawl              Wii                 Nintendo                    2.7M

Rainbow Six Vegas 2                    360                 Ubisoft                      752.3K

Army of Two                               360                 Electronic Arts            606.1K

Wii Play w/Remote                      Wii                 Nintendo                   409.8K

God of War: Chains of Olympus   PSP                 Sony                          340.5K

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII       PSP                 Square Enix                301.6K

Guitar Hero III                           Wii                  Activision                   264.1K

MLB 2K8                                     360                 Take 2                       237.1K

Call of Duty 4                             360                  Activision                   237K

Army of Two                              PS3                 Electronic Arts             224.9K

(Note: all figures are U.S. only. The lifetime-to-date figures are calculated by me with a bunch of annoying addition, since NPD doesn't provide it anymore.)

We may not be seeing that "Zelda" movie anytime soon, but apparently we are getting a bunch of "Legend of Zelda" manga graphic novels. Given the big crossover between Nintendo fans and manga fans, I wouldn't be surprised if these are really big. But how do they fit into the "Zelda" mythos? Is a non-interactive story about a kid trying to rescue a princess and save the world interesting? Particularly given how much of the game is spent solving environmental puzzles, which probably doesn't work as well in comic form.

Looks like we'll find out starting in October.

(Hat tip: Multiplayer.)