Nintendo continues to shine in the videogame console market as they dominated the sales in the Japanese market.

Nintendo Wii and DS gaming consoles are selling more units in the market compared to Sony Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable.

In fact, Wii is outselling Sony’s Playstation 3 consoles five to one. This ratio was four to one in the month of April.

Microsoft was the last of the lot with their Xbox 360 gaming console which sold just around 11,082 units. Nintendo sold 251,794 Wiis last month.

Nintendo DS also managed to easily beat Sony PSP in terms of sales. Nintendo sold around 620,670 units of DS compared to 123,673 PSPs sold by Sony.

Microsoft has confirmed that they are now stopping the owners of modified Xbox 360 consoles to join their Xbox Live servers.

The company said in a statement: “One of the great things about LIVE and the unified community is that we work hard to create a level playing field for all gamers and have a no tolerance policy towards inappropriate behavior like hacking or cheating.”

It added: “As part of our commitment to our members, we do not allow people that we have detected to have modified their console to connect to LIVE. This is an important part of our efforts to try and maintain a fair gaming environment for the large majority of gamers that play by the rules.”

the company stated that the account holders would not have their accounts banned from the service. They just would not be able to connect to the service with modified consoles.

Microsoft added: “We have stated in the past that customers can only enjoy access to the Xbox LIVE community through the use of a genuine, unmodified, Xbox console and we will continue to enforce this rule to ensure the integrity of our service, the protection of our partners and the benefits of our users.”

market research firm NPD Group has stated in its latest report that Nintendo continues to dominate the current generation videogame console market with their Wii gaming console.

Nintendo Wii led in videogame console shipments in April for the fourth consecutive month. In fact Nintendo managed to sell four times the number of Sony Playstation 3 units sold in the market last month.

It also sold more than twice the number of Microsoft Xbox 360 sold in the market. Pretty impressive figures indeed.

NPD added in their report that the total U.S. sales of videogames and hardware reached $838.6 million. This is a 20% improvement from the last year in the same month.

Nintendo was reported to have shipped as many as 360,000 units of their Wii gaming console in the market during the period. Sony in comparison could only ship 82,000 units of the Playstation 3. Microsoft did somewhat better with 74,000 Xbox 360s shipped in the market.

Nintendo has added four more titles to their Virtual Console’s virtual cupboard lineup. One of the highlighted games of this new package is the classic fighting game Virtua Fighter 2.

Virtua Fighter 2 was originally released in the arcades in 1994, and ported to the Sega Saturn, Sega Mega Drive, and PC.

The game features nine characters to play with and has a variety of different move combos to discover. It can be played alone and against one another.

Another title being launched for the Wii gaming platform is the Wonder Boy in Monster World. This game was launched in 1991 on the Sega Mega Drive.

The third gaming title to be added to the virtual console is Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle which is a platform game originally released on the Sega Mega Drive in Japan in 1989. The game has 11 stages to play and features a rock-paper-scissors-style boss-fight system.

TurboGrafx game Shockman completes this latest package added by Nintendo for the Wii games. This game was first released in 1991.

Virtua Fighter 2, Wonder Boy in Monster World, and Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle are worth 800 Wii points while the Shockman would cost the gamers around 600 Wii points.

Japanese videogame console maker Nintendo has two hugely successful gaming platforms in their hands. Both Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS are selling in huge numbers in the market beating their closest rivals.

The company has now said that they are working hard on developing newer gaming titles for both these platforms. Nintendo claimed that they are currently working on developing 45 software titles for the Wii console.

They are also developing 79 games for the two-year-old DS portable player. This information was revealed by the Nintendo President Satoru Iwata who confirmed that the next batch of games will be introduced to the market at the end of summer this year.

The popularity of Wii and DS has helped Nintendo post some impressive revenue results in the market and they plan to continue exploring the potential of the consoles to boost consumer interest and profits.

Microsoft is going to launch their Xbox 360 Elite variant of their popular gaming console tomorrow. This new edition from the company comes with support for built-in HDTV support and more.

The console comes with a slightly different look and has a larger storage capacity. It would retail for US$479.99. Still cheaper than the Playstation 3 console in the market.

Microsoft would be selling the console with HDMI and component video cables and their Xbox Live headset. A wireless game controller is also included in the package.

The company is also making available the 120GB hard drive for owners of existing variants of Xbox 360 for a hefty $179.99.

Gamers are however disappointed at the lack of built-in wireless networking support in this new edition. This feature is available in the much cheaper Nintendo Wii console and is very usable for the gamers.

Nintendo Wii has been the best selling next generation gaming console in the recent months. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 came second while Sony is trailing their two rivals.

However, Microsoft is still not managing to impress the analysts with the sales of their Xbox 360. In fact, the sales have been dropping down in the recent months.

Microsoft has just reported that they sold around 500,000 consoles during the first quarter. This is down significantly from sales figures of 1.7 million last year in the same period.

The company however reported slight improvement in their revenue figures as they made a loss of $315 million. This is down from $402 million a year earlier.

The sales for the company were down too at $929 million, down from $1.2 billion a year earlier.

Market analysts believe that the company would have to work real hard to make a profit from this division. They can launch some exciting new games in the coming months. They are already scheduled to launch Halo 3 which is expected to be a best seller for the company.

Wii has been a massive hit for Nintendo and demand for the gaming console continues to dominate the supplies. As a result, even months after the launch it is pretty hard to spot a Wii unit in retail stores.

Nintendo has admitted that the shortage of the hit Wii game machine was “abnormal”. They are now promising that they would boost the production to enhance the supplies.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in a statement: “We must do our best to fix this abnormal lack of stock. We have not been able to properly foresee demand.”

Nintendo has just posted impressive revenue reports as they gained from impressive sales of Wii and DS gaming consoles.

Iwata however did not reveal their plans on how much they would boost the production by. He just said that more machines will get delivered to stores around the world.

We in India are hoping that Nintendo would launch the Wii console in India as well.

Sony has finally launched their Playstation 3 gaming console in the Indian market at an umm disappointing price point of Rs 39,990. This makes it more expensive than a fairly decent computer for the consumers in the Indian market.

In comparison, Microsoft is selling their Xbox 360 gaming console at price variants of Rs 27,750 and Rs 19,990. Nintendo Wii is not officially available in the market but it is available in the black market for less than Rs. 15000.

Sony believes that the PS3 gaming console offers more than just gaming as it comes loaded with a Blu-Ray drive. Masaru Tamagawa, managing director, Sony India added: “In a package that includes a 60 GB hard disk, a high definition (HD) Blu-ray optical drive, HD video output, Bluetooth wireless controllers and built in Wi-Fi adapter, the results can be an eye-popping multimedia reality for Indian enthusiasts.”

The company faces intense competition from Microsoft in the Indian market. Microsoft is aiming to bring their recently unveiled Xbox 360 Elite console in India and is also planning to launch Xbox Live platform for the Indian gamers in a month’s time.

Sony on the other hand aims to establish an exclusive Sony PS3 store by the end of this year in India.

Consumers face another major hassle going for the Sony’s PS3 console. The games for this console are going to cost around Rs 2,799 per unit. Xbox 360 games cost between Rs 1,499 and Rs 2,510.

We personally are waiting for Nintendo to arrive in India officially. Would that happen?

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is scheduled to get a software update which would enable the console to play an additional of 40 games developed for the first generation Xbox gaming console.

Gamers are expected to get an automatic alert whenever they go online through their Xbox 360 gaming console. They can also however manually download the update and install it themselves using a CD.

With this expansion, the Xbox 360 now supports more than 300 games made for the original Xbox gaming console. This is certainly going to please a lot of gamers who own a lot of previous generation games.

Microsoft adds a lot of these games would look better than then they did on the original console because of improved hardware and upscaling to 720p/1080i.

Some of the new games now supported on the Xbox 360 include:

Tenku (Japan only)
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Avatar: The Legend of Aang (EMEA/ANZ)
Breakdown
Call of Duty 2: Big Red One
Call of Duty 3
Cars
Crash Bandicoot 5: Wrath of Cortex
Daisenryaku VII
FIFA Soccer 2007
Full Spectrum Warrior
Guilty Gear Isuka
Innocent Tears (Japan only)
Jet Set Radio Future
King of Fighters 2002
King of Fighters: Neowave
Mad Dash Racing (Japan only)
Mech Assault 2
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
Nascar 2006: Total Team Control
NFL Fever 2004
Oddworld Munch’s Oddysee
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Petit Copter (Japan only)
Phantom Dust
Reservoir Dogs
Return To Castle Wolfenstein
Rugby League 2
Sengoku Warriors (Japan only)
Sonic Riders
Soul Calibur 2 UPDATED
Spider-Man 2
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
Tony Hawk’s Underground
Ultra Bust a Move /ULTRA Pazzle Bobble
Unreal Championship 2