Nintendo Triples Wii Sales In Q2

Tokyo (Japan) - 21 months after the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, the game console is still in short supply and you have to be lucky to find one on the shelves in retail stores. But Nintendo’s previously announced increase in Wii production capacity is showing effect: The company sold 5.2 million consoles in the second quarter of this year (fiscal Q1 2009 for the company), compared to only 1.7 million in Q2 of last year.

The Wii console was the main growth driver for the company in the second quarter, lifting earnings by 34% to $996 million. Sales came in at $3.9 billion.

Following the company’s April 25 announcement that Wii production capacity would be gradually increased to about 2.4 million units per month in July, unit shipments of the Wii console have jumped considerably from 1.7 million in Q2 2007 to 5.2 million in Q2 2008. Nintendo said that it has sold a cumulative 29.6 million Wiis, which compares to 19 million Xbox 360s and 14.4 million PS3s. Nintendo previously said that it expects to ship about 25 million Wiis during the current fiscal year.

Wii Fit launched successfully with sales of 3.4 million "Wii Fit" games. "Mario Kart Wii" sold 6.4 million units.

DS sales were down by 40,000 to 6.94 million devices for the quarter. Nintendo, however, said that it remains on track to sell about 28 million units during the 2009 fiscal year. Worldwide DS sales now total 77.54 million, the company said.