Wii sales trounce PS3 and Xbox

Nintendo’s Wii video game console outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 six to one in June in Japan, a Japanese publishing company says.

Although the Wii has been on sale since late last year, they’re selling so briskly supply still hasn’t caught up with demand and long lines form when shipments arrive at stores.

Enterbrain Inc, the publisher, found that Wii also outsold Microsoft Corp’s Xbox 360 in Japan in June.

Nintendo, the maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games, sold 270,974 Will consoles in Japan in June, while Sony sold 41,628 PS3 machines, and Microsoft sold 17,616 Xbox 360 consoles, it said. Overseas sales were not available.

The Wii, with its motion-sensitive remote control wand – called a Wiimote – that can be used as a sword, tennis racket or fishing rod depending on the game, has helped make the game a surprise hit around the world, widening the appeal of games to far beyond the usual niche target of young males.

The latest numbers suggest that Nintendo’s lead is widening. Wii outsold PS3 just four to one in April and five to one in May, according to Enterbrain.

“The Nintendo’s game console is catching on not only among children but also adults and singles,” said Enterbrain spokeswoman Yuko Magaribuchi.

The availability of more game software for the Wii was another factor adding to its popularity, she said.

Nintendo has said it sold 5.84 million Wii machines worldwide in the five months since its release in November, 2.37 million in the Americas, and 2.0 million in Japan. The Kyoto-based company said it expected to sell 14 million more Wii machines in the fiscal year ending in March 2008.

Sony has shipped 5.5 million PS3 machines in the fiscal year through March.

Nintendo has also marked robust sales with its Nintendo DS portable machine, while Sony has struggled with its offering, the PlayStation Portable.

New Touch mobile is no iPhone copycat

Taiwanese smart phone maker HTC has rolled out a new touch screen mobile device which is aimed squarely at the broad consumer market coveted by Apple’s new iPhone.

The difference is that Australian consumers will be able to get their hands on an HTC Touch mobile by the end of the week. Whereas the iPhone, which is not due to arrive here until sometime next year, is still well out of reach.

HTC chief executive officer Peter Chou, who was in Sydney for the local launch, dismissed any suggestion that his company’s phone was a copycat product launched to steal theiPhone’s thunder.

“We are actually very pleased that a company like Apple agrees with our direction,” Mr Chou said.

He said HTC Touch had been in the works for over two years and would have come out sooner but for the fact that he had sent an earlier prototype back to the drawing board because he wasn’t satisfied with it.

The phone is slightly smaller than the iPhone and about 2mm thicker. It features a 2.8 inch LCD screen (versus the iPhone’s 3.5 inch version) and uses Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6 Professional operating system.

An unlocked version of the phone that comes with a 1GB removable microSD storage card will retail for $699 – the same price in Australian dollars as the 8GB iPhone model that was launched in the US on Friday.

The phone’s user interface is – like the iPhone – based on a touch-sensitive screen that employs HTC’s home-grown TouchFLO technology. This allows the user to operate it with their fingers (and thumbs) or with a small stylus that comes with the phone.

TouchFLO enables the the phone to be operated with one hand, using the thumb to scroll though pages, lists or media – like music, videos of photos.
Although the first versions of the new phone will only operate on the slower 2G networks, the company does intend to bring out 3G models down the track.

While HTC is not a household name it has been in business for a decade, making devices for companies such as Compaq , Orange O2 and Vodafone. Last year, HTC took a majority stake in rival smart phone manufacturer Dopod.

HTC has been chosen by Microsoft as a hardware development partner and as such now enjoys close relations with the software giant.

With numerous mobile phone makers planning to bring out touch-screen devices, HTC chief marketing officer John Wang predicted that this year would be remembered as an “inflection point” in the industry.

“Mobile phones are moving from a push button experience to a touch sensory experience,” Mr Wang said. Technologies like TouchFLO mean that users no longer needed to “have to remember the right button to push or when to push the right button,” he said.

The phone will be sold through Optus, Office Works and a distributor called Brightpoint.

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SAMSUNG Unveils the Symbian OS Smartphone SGH-i400

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., a leading provider of mobile phones and telecommunication systems, today showcased its latest Symbian OS smartphone SGH-i400 at S60 summit in Madrid, Spain.

The Samsung i400 is perfect for users who want to have all of the advanced features of a smartphone in a slim and stylish design. The new smartphone i400 is based on Symbian OS and S60 which offer extensive language supports, enhanced download applications and multitasking features. With Symbian S60, the Samsung i400 allows its users to install programs on their mobile phones just like PCs. The stylish slider phone supports full web browsing and Bluetooth connectivity for active business users. To enhance its multimedia features, the Samsung i400 also includes 2 Megapixel camera, music key and stereo dual speaker. Moreover, the i400 has a 2.3” wide display for the convenient use of business and multimedia functions.

S.P. Yoon, Vice President of Samsung’s Telecommunications Network Business said, “We are happy to introduce our new Symbian based smartphone SGH-i400 which follows the earlier release of SGH-i520, the first Symbian OS smartphone. We can provide a convenient mobile phone experience for our users by adopting Symbian S60.” He added, “Samsung is excited to present new smartphones to our customers around the world, and we will continue to reveal new models to fit our customers’ needs.”

The i400 will be launched in Russia from July 2007 and to be expanded in other European countries shortly