Nintendo: 600,000 Wiis Sold in Eight Days

Nintendo pats itself on the back, claiming to have sold more than 600,000 Wii video game consoles in the system's first eight days of availability.

The video game console wars certainly aren’t dull this year, with all the soc-called next-generation consoles now available, Microsoft looking to woo players away from the expensive (and hard-to-find) PlayStation 3, and the holiday shopping season getting into full swing. And Nintendo’s Wii is not being left out of the frenzy: according to the company, they’ve sold more than 600,000 Wii consoles in the Americas in just the system’s first eight days of availability.

"Even with sales already in excess of 600,000 units, demand continues to exceed supply, as it’s clear this is one of the ‘gotta-have’ products for the holiday season," says Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime in a statement. "We’ve shipped retailers several times the amount of hardware the other company [that would be "Sony," -Ed] was able to deliver for its launch around the same time—and we still sold out. Given the inclusive nature of Wii game play, we’re seeing this new form of video gaming is already a huge hit with gamers and newcomers alike. It continues to be a phenomenal launch."

According to Nintendo, the Wii game Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has already sold more than 454,000 units, meaning more than 75 percent of Wii purchasers are taking home Zelda in addtion to the bundled Wii Sports.

In the meantime, amusing reports continue to trickle in from consumers and avid gamers who claim to have had the Wi’s innovative motion-sensing game controller fly out of their hands…only to crack their television screens or, in some cases, break windows or other household items. We bet someone out there has a betting pool going on the date the first class-action lawsuit is filed over the hazards of flying Wii controllers.