Gamertell

When the Nintendo Wii was first unveiled, heads spun and Nintendo and it was uncertain that Nintendo knew what it was doing. Being technically inferior to its competitors - the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 - and by not including high-definition graphics or DVD movie playback and focusing on seemingly gimmicky motion controls, the Wii was, at the time, written off as an asinine product.

According to Forbes, Nintendo’s asinine product is the only home console system of this generation turning in a reasonable (if not only) profit so far, which means the company knew exactly what it was doing all along (or the employees prayed to the right money god).

Gearing the system toward the casual market, a market that up until now was ripe for the picking, Nintendo is bringing in a $6 profit on every system sold. To put that figure in perspective, Joystiq is reporting that 19 million consoles were sold in 2008 alone which netted them $114 million dollars in profit and it doesn’t even have the cheapest gaming console on the market. Microsoft does with its $199 Xbox 360 Arcade bundle.

At the rate the Wii is selling, Nintendo won’t even have to think about dropping the price for another year, which would create the perfect window for a revised version of the console come 2010. Not to mention that Nintendo has yet to release color variations of the system, something they have hinted about planning to do.

More numbers come in the form of software which, according to Forbes, predicts that Wii owners will purchase 220 million games for the system this year. That’s a 100 million more units of software being predicted to move than on the Xbox 360 (125 million) or the PlayStation 3 (120 million).

Of course, as Joystiq points out, this doesn’t factor in what games will be third-party shovelware. But if Forbes has their figures right, 60 percent of that software will indeed be Nintendo’s own first-party stuff, games for which they will not have to pay publishing or licensing fees.

These numbers, while impressive, are not really surprising save the $6 profit. While it’s still early in this generation, a lot of pegs are on Nintendo to take the gold with the backing of the casual gamer and the promise that the hardcore have not been abandoned. Nintendo also has a comfortable lead over Microsoft and Sony with Microsoft make taking small steps to catch up and Sony seemingly lost in haze. 

As always, though, nothing is written in stone and next year the tables could very well turn, although the numbers sure aren’t pointing that way. Ah, videogame industry, you fickle duck.

Read [Forbes] Also Read [Joystiq]