Nintendo's Wii top U.S. seller in Jan.

SAN FRANCISCO:  Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s Wii was the best-selling video game console in the United States in January, and the Japanese company also boasted four of the top 10 games, data released on Wednesday showed.

The figures from market research firm NPD showed that U.S. shoppers snapped up 436,000 of the Wii, which debuted in November for $250 and features a motion-sensing controller that has helped build buzz for the machine.

The second best-selling console was Sony Corp.'s older PlayStation 2, which moved 299,000 units and outsold Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 and Sony's newer but more expensive PlayStation 3, the data showed.

Xbox 360 sales were 294,000 while those for the PS3 were 244,000. High-end versions of those machines retail for $400 and $600, respectively.

In December, the biggest month for video game sales due to the holiday shopping season, Microsoft sold 1.1 million Xbox units, while Nintendo sold 604,000 Wii consoles and Sony sold 490,700 PS3 machines.

NPD receives data representing about two-thirds of U.S. retail sales and makes projections for the remainder of the market based on a sampling of consumers. The figures do not include Canadian sales or those from "mom and pop" retailers.

Total sales of video game hardware and software hit $1.3 billion in January, with game sales jumping more than 50 percent to $549 million, though NPD added that was somewhat inflated due to its January 2007 data covering several more days than January 2006.

U.S. game sales charts were topped by "Lost Planet: Extreme Condition," a game from Japanese publisher Capcom in which players fight aliens across an icy world.

"Lost Planet" was one of three games for the Xbox 360 that made the top 10, the other two being Microsoft's "Gears of War" at No. 3 and French publisher Ubisoft's "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas" at No. 9.

Nintendo had four games in the top 10: two for the Wii, one for its DS handheld and one for its last-generation console, the Gamecube.

The PlayStation 3 had one game, "Resistance: Fall of Man," at No. 8, and PlayStation 2 placed two titles, a guitar simulator and a football game, at No. 3 and No. 6.

NPD did not provide further details about unit shipments or dollar sales of the top January games.

A list of January's top games follows.

Title System Publisher

1. "Lost Planet: Xbox 360 Capcom

Extreme Condition"

2. "Guitar Hero 2" PlayStation 2 Activision

3. "Gears of War" Xbox 360 Microsoft

4. "WarioWare: Smooth Wii Nintendo

Moves"

5. "Legend of Zelda: Wii Nintendo

Twilight Princess"

6. "Madden NFL 07" PlayStation 2 Electronic Arts

7. "Legend of Zelda: Gamecube Nintendo

Twilight Princess"

8. "Resistance: Fall PlayStation 3 Sony

of Man"

9. "Tom Clancy's Xbox 360 Ubisoft

Rainbow Six: Vegas"

10. "New Super Mario Nintendo DS Nintendo

Brothers"

© Reuters