Nintendo Wii sales in Japan top 7 million

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Sales of Nintendo’s Wii have topped seven million in Japan since its launch nearly two years ago, as the family-friendly game console continues to grow in popularity, a survey showed Wednesday. Nintendo had sold 7,024,239 units as of Nov 23 since the launch on Dec 2, 2006, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain.

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That compared with rival Sony’s sales of 2,469,448 PlayStation 3s in Japan as of November 16 since the launch in November 2006, and Microsoft’s sales of 793,105 Xbox 360s since December 2005. Sony and Microsoft have lagged behind Nintendo as their consoles focused mainly on hardcore gamers rather than casual players.

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Nintendo has worked on broadening the Wii’s appeal with a controller that can be used, among other things, to simulate the swinging of a tennis racket, and with games such as Wii Fit for the health-conscious.

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The company is also working on launching the upcoming Wii Music, which simulates playing in a band.

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Nintendo has also sold a total of 24,127,175 Nintendo handheld DS consoles in Japan since they were first launched about three years ago, Enterbrain said.

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