After reading the latest Nintendo flashback I feel like I`m suddenly transported back to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium where Nintendo is reeling off tons of statistics again, except this time Cyril isn`t sitting next to me making snarky retorts. Nintendo has issued a missive touting their strong first half of sales both in terms of hardware (2.3M units sold in North America) and in terms of software (the top three games are all Nintendo games). The fun thing is that they point out how the Wii already has 180 games but that 120 of them are Virtual Console games.

The numbers are still fairly impressive but it should be noted that the real meat of the gaming season hasn`t started yet. Sure the Pokemon games have sold well but Madden 08 is right around the corner and are you really going to be interested in playing Wii Play when Halo 3, Lair, Mass Effect, and GTA IV all hit stores in a few months? Sure there`s the new Metroid game and the new Smash Brothers game coming out for the Wii but it`s a pretty steep drop after that (OK, Boogie looks good). Time will tell if the strategy pays off but it`s a little early to call the battle won.