Almost a month after its release, Bungie Studio's Halo 3 has finally loosened its grip on the US sales charts, with Valve Corporation's Orange Box succeeding the widely successful game. For the week ending on October 13, The Orange Box (containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) is the best seller on its first week of release.

For its opening week, The Orange Box's Xbox 360 version has sold 348,049 units and Halo 3, now on its third week, has sold 285,860 units. In third place is the popular The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS handheld platform. In fourth is Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War for the PSP and in fifth is Wii Sports for the Wii.

It was only a matter of time for Halo 3 to lose the top spot, but it's unlikely the same could be said for its presence in Xbox Live, where it continues to dominate the charts after dethroning the previous champ, Gears of War.

Here's the latest on sales of hardware and games for the weeks ending on July 7 and 14. July 14, it has to be noted, is just a day after E3.

 

Recent data gives light to Sony's claim of a doubling in their sales since their US$ 100 price drop. For the sales week ending on July 14 at least, sales for the PlayStation 3 rose 131%, more than double, outrunning the sales of the 360. The Wii rose by 10% but the Xbox hardly moved, selling only 1% more than the previous week.

The Nintendo DS is enjoying a ginormous success; although sales slipped by 5%, you can hardly scoff at more than 97k units sold in a week. The PSP sold only 50k on the same week.

It also looks like the top 5 games in Amazon last July 8 seems to be just as popular to non-online shoppers. The most popular games for each console is Wii Play for the Wii, The Darkness for the Xbox 360, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma for the PS3. Still going strong for the Wii are Mario Party 8 and Resident Evil 4. Slipping into the 360's favor is Transformers, while Gears of War is almost out of the top 10 in 9th place. Transformers also made it to PS3's top 3, and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas is still popular in second place.

Of the total of 11,878,996 units of next gen consoles that have been sold in America, 55% of those are Xbox 360 units, 31.3% are Wii, and the PS3 accounts for 13.7%. Also, if the PS3 continues to sell more than the 360, and if the Wii continues its current pace, the 360 will be in for some tough times.

For a detailed list of the sales for the week of July 7 and 14, you may click our Read link below.

 

It's official: there is no stopping Nintendo's momentum. As if it was just yesterday since the Wii reached 8 million, Ninty's product of innovation and waving sticks have finally arrived at the 9 million milestone - just a million away from Xbox 360.

Looking at the numbers VG Chartz had more than a month back, the Wii sold almost a million units since early June. The PlayStation 3 had a solid month and sold more than the 360, but both pale in comparison to Wii's performance.

On the handhelds side, the DS continues to dominate with almost 45 million units sold. Sony's PSP, while behind by a huge margin, still experience healthy sales as it got past the 22 million mark.

Let's not beat around the bush, here's what VG Chartz gathered:

Xbox 360: 10.08m (0.41m Japan 6.50m America 3.16m Others)   
Wii: 9.05m (2.98m Japan, 3.64m America, 2.42m Others)
PS3: 3.69m (1.00m Japan, 1.58m America, 1.11m Others)

DS: 44.97m (18.14m Japan, 13.11m America, 13.72m Others)
PSP: 22.15m (5.75m Japan, 8.63m America, 7.78m Others)

 

Hot in the news is the estimated worldwide sales numbers for Nintendo's new-gen console, which just hit a mark less than two million to the Xbox 360's current sales count. The Wii is now just 1.28 million units shy of taking the lead in the hardware base establishment race, reports VG Chartz, a source for worldwide console sales.

And what's more, third-party onlookers note that if this month's sales continue in similar numbers, the Wii could well zoom over all the high-powered next-gen consoles in eight to nine weeks or late August 2007. If rendered true, the Wii will have swatted all console race analysts' predictions to date. The Nintendo DS still outruns the PlayStation Portable, while the PlayStation 3 is slowly making its way up in its ten-year marathon.

However, numbers in Nexgen Wars have different estimates for the worldwide sales for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii. So it would appear that nothing is etched in stone until the three console companies come forward with their quarterly sales numbers, hopefully at the same time they release their Q3 2007 financial performance reports.

Consoles (numbers in millions):

Xbox 360 - Worldwide: 10.13; Japan: 0.41; America: 6:47; Others: 3.25
PlayStation 3 - Worldwide: 3.61; Japan: 0.98 ; America: 1.56; Others: 1.07
Wii - Worldwide: 8.85; Japan: 2.91; America: 3.57; Others: 2.37

Handhelds (numbers in millions):

DS - Worldwide: 45.36; Japan: 18.01; America: 13.03; Others: 14.32
PSP - Worldwide: 22.34; Japan: 5.71; America: 8.58; Others: 8.05