With everyone watching the pennies this Christmas the battle between the gaming giants, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, is expected to more fierce than ever as they’re competing for fewer consumers, with less to spend this year. However, despite the gaming giants battling it out, and the economy being at such a low ebb, Nintendo’s Nintendo Wii is expected to win the battle, even though it’s in very short supply again this year.

According to the website VGChartz, the Nintendo Wii has sold 336,517 consoles already this month, which is more than the Xbox 360 (190,440) and the PlayStation 3 (88,561) combined!

The Nintendo Wii has literally gone from strength to strength this year as new ground breaking releases in the video game industry have come out for the Wii, including Wii-Fit and Wii Music. As a result of titles such as these, a whole new audience has been introduced to gaming.

Sony and Microsoft aren’t taking the Wii’s success lying down though, as they’ve both released their own ‘family focused’ games in the run up to Christmas in a hope to capitalise on the new games audience that Nintendo has created.

Just how green is your Wii? I know, it’s white, but you know what we mean. According to the US Natural Resources Defense Council the Wii is very green indeed, a veritable friend of the Earth. According to their research the Wii is the greenest of all the games consoles (which must make Sony and Microsoft very jealous, more jealous than the fact that the Nintendo Wii is outselling them across the globe).

The US Natural Resources Defense Council state that the Nintendo Wii uses less energy than any other games console when it is being played on, and when it’s on standby. This means that Wii owners can make savings on their energy bill while saving the environment.

So you’d expect Greenpeace, the company that lobbies to protect the Earth and the animal kingdom wherever possible, to love the Wii? You’d be wrong. Greenpeace has ranked all technology companies based on how green they are, the sort of chemicals they use and their use of recycling, and they’ve scored Nintendo with a very lowly 0.8.

Mobile phone giant Nokia scored a 6.9, which was the highest score, which is more than 8 times greener that Nintendo.

She may have survived dozens of video games on multiple formats, including the PC, PlayStation 2 and even the Sega Saturn, plus she’s survived two movies, but could Lara Croft have finally met her match in the shape of the Nintendo Wii?

Sadly it doesn’t mean that the Wii version of Tomb Raider: Underworld is devilishly hard, it means that there’s a bug in the game meaning that players can’t actually complete it.

The problem occurs when Lara is in the Coastal Thailand level. Our favourite heroin must utilise a lever in order to access an underwater tunnel, but sadly many game players have found that the lever simply isn’t there!

This means it’s impossible to open the tunnel and proceed to the next level.

Lara’s creators, and publishers for the game, Eidos, have asked that players who get stuck in the game revert to a saved game from earlier in the level and try again.

It’s not an ideal solution, but hopefully it will mean that players won’t get stuck forever, and Lara will be able to escape and complete the Wii version of the game.

According to a report from the researcher NPD Group, consumers in the USA won’t be spending as much this Christmas on technology as in previous years. With the struggling global economy, consumers in America aren’t expected to buy as many iPods or Nintendo Wii consoles as they perhaps would normally do this time of year.

The research showed that 54% of those questioned were looking for specific items on yesterday’s Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, instead of just browsing for bargains that retailers were hoping to offer them.

Some consumers had even stated that they were no longer looking to make any technology purchases at all this year, with 33% of consumers who said that had planned to be a big screen TV, now choosing not too because of the economy.

Many consumers said that because of the economy they wouldn’t be loyal to the big brands when it comes to choosing an MP3 player, which isn’t such great news for market leader Apple, or Sony. Consumers stated that the price was the main factor.

With the success of the Nintendo Wii and its plethora of games accessories comes equal success for the companies that make and distribute those accessories. If you want Guitar Hero accessories, Simpsons addons or of course the much anticipated Star Wars Wii accessory (you know what we’re talking about) then Bolton based A4T are the guys behind it.

The company has gone from strength to strength since the release of the Nintendo Wii, and has just secured further investment with a £4 million funding boost from RBS.

The company has only been trading for four years, and has already made all manner of games accessories, for all of the major consoles, including the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Anyone who’s played a golf game, fishing game or car game with a custom controller will have most likely used A4T’s products.

Andrew Shephard, the founder of games accessory company A4T, stated:

The business has performed very well and we have made great progress in a short space of time.

We are one of the leading gaming accessory providers in the UK and our goal is to build upon this success and become a major player on the world stage.

As we secure an increasing number of quality licences, it is essential to have the necessary funding structure in place to cover the cost of our operation.

This facility with RBS is a good solution and will support our future growth plans.

It’s the same old feeling, you’ve been in the pub for hours and you’re bursting for a Wii, but the queue is just too long. This time however it’s not the queue for the toilets, it’s the queue for the Nintendo Wii.

The cutesy console from Nintendo that has been giving its heavyweight rivals the PS3 and the Xbox 360 a good pasting in the sales charts is now taking on pub classics such as darts, pool and dominoes.

The pub is the Shoulder Of Mutton in York, and it’s just installed a Nintendo Wii for regulars to battle over while they lubricate their shouting tackle. The pub is staging its own ten pin bowling tournament, not with the classic pub games of ‘skittles’, but with the Nintendo Wii.

Landlord Robin Watson set the tournament up last week and it’s proving a real hit with the locals.

We had the Wii upstairs, but it wasn’t being used, so we thought we might as well bring it down and let our customers have a go.

Everybody loved it and it just took off from there – it’s been a real hit and people come in just to have a go.

Skittle alleys have all but disappeared from pubs these days, so this bowling game is the closest you’re going to get – I guess it’s the modern version.

You have to swing your arm like you would in real-life and pretend you were releasing a ball.

The best of three tournament features sixteen pub regulars, all battling for the crown of best virtual bowler in the pub.

It’s been really good. Everyone crowds round to watch and they all seem to be cheering for the younger ones. I think people want to see the adults beaten because they all think they’re going to win.

We’ve got people playing from 11 o’clock in the morning right into the evening.

I think at times like these, when the money situation isn’t good, it’s helping to keep people coming out.

The pub tournament was a £2 entry ‘winner takes all’ deal, and with sixteen competitors that’s an awful big pub prize kitty up for grabs.

There’s no denying that the iPhone is a staggering piece of kit. It’s won many accolades since its launch, including many gadget of the year awards, but is it likely to compete against the leading games console when even Sony and Microsoft have failed in terms of sales?

It seems as though may pose a challenge for the Wii, as a new series of free games for the Apple iPhone that have been released allow users to play games on the handset, using the handset itself as a controller.

The gaming website iFun has release four games that can be played on the iPhone, and your computer at the same time. Players can use the iPhone as the controller, playing the game on the computer screen.

All you need to do to play is to connect the iPhone to the same wireless network as your PC or Mac, download the games and begin playing.

Whether this will be enough to compete with the Nintendo Wii is another matter, but when the games are free to download it’s definitely worth a look.

Just when it seemed that everything Nintendo touched turned to gold, their most recent release for the Nintendo Wii, Wii Music, hasn’t been quite so hotly received. When it was launched at E3 earlier in the year the critics weren’t exactly enamoured with it, either because they didn’t get it, or they just weren’t interested in a game that allows you to play along to music.

Now that the title has been released, it does seem to have fallen foul of consumer disinterest, although that of course doesn’t mean it’s not a great game. Many great games have had poor sales over the years, turning them into cult classics. This isn’t what Nintendo will want to hear though; a cult classic doesn’t put money in their pockets.

According to video games website GameSpot:

According to raw NPD data, Wii Music sold just under 81,000 units in the 11 days after it went on sale on October 20. The number is merely a fraction of the 687,700 units Wii Fit moved domestically in a similar period when it went on sale on April 19.

One of the reasons for the game’s poor show at the tills could be the competitive market. With Rock Band and Guitar Hero already leading the way, Wii Music has some heavyweight competition to beat. Also the lack of any peripherals might be a factor. Waggling the Wii remote isn’t quite as exciting as strumming on a Wii Guitar or beating some Wii Drumsticks.

Nintendo is probably hoping the game will take off, as Brain Age wasn’t a massive hit when it was released, but gradually picked up sales and snowballed over time. Nintendo is also reportedly looking at getting Wii Music introduced into schools for educational use. This could be a very shrewd move indeed if it comes off.

You probably wouldn’t think that the average American would put the Wii Fit before a McDonald’s. It just doesn’t sit right with the stereotypical image we have of Americans.

You’d be wrong though. A survey was conducted in the US to find the most memorable product launch of the year, and it found that Nintendo’s fitness accessory for the Nintendo Wii, the Wii-Fit, was the most memorable product launch of 2008.

The Wii-Fit finished just ahead of Apple’s iPod Touch, showing that Americans still remember their gadgets, even in an economic slump and amid a presidential election.

The third and fourth most memorable product launches restore our faith in Americans though, with the fruity low calorie Bud Light Lime beer in third place, and yes, a McDonald’s product was fourth. It had to be didn’t it? The Southern Style Chicken Biscuit & Sandwich - which no doubt doesn’t resemble a biscuit or a sandwich.

Burger King also featured in the top ten, among other food products.

The video game Rock Band also featured in the top ten, at eighth spot.

We may be in the middle of a global economic downturn, with consumers being very careful with their money, but nobody seems to have told Nintendo. The Nintendo Wii is ploughing along towards its usual Christmas flurry of sales without a care in the world.

In fact, sales of the Wii are going up month on month in the USA. In October, $1.31 billion was spent in the US on video games, which was an increase of 18% on September’s sales. The spike in sales for October is, unsurprisingly, led by the Nintendo Wii, which has been outselling its rivals since its launch 2 years ago.

According to NPD Group, a market research company, the Nintendo Wii sold 803,000 consoles in October. The Wii is beating its rivals in the family arena, according to Geoffrey Rockwell, humanities computing professor at the University of Alberta.

The video game has come out of the basement.

It’s not just family bonding but you’re finding video games are showing up in different social spaces. When I talk to my students, they’ll often have video games at parties.

The Entertainment Software Association of Canada has endorsed his claims, as they’ve published the results of a survey that show six out of ten parents actually play along with video games, showing that video games are now more of a family affair rather than the domain of a lone player.