Red Wii gives Nintendo 300% sales bump

The new Red Wii bundle has had the desired effect for Nintendo in Japan, with sales of the console rocketing by nearly 300 per cent in its first week on sale.

Andriasang reports that Nintendo's hardware topped Japan's weekly Media Create home console charts, moving 39,308. That's up from 11,521 last week. PlayStation 3 came in second with 21,114 units sold.

PSP was the best selling handheld, notching up 43,055 sales, with the DS trailing at 34,457.

The Wii has some ground to make up if it wants to catch PlayStation 3 for the annual sales crown. Sony's machine currently sits at 1,214,417 units sold, compared to the Wii's 1,161,052.

Nintendo will be hoping for a similar bump in the rest of the world. The Red Wii pack, which adds New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the original version of Donkey Kong and a Wii Remote Plus to the standard Wii Sports bundle, launched in the UK on 29th October.

Last month, CEO Satoru Iwata announced that in the absence of a price cut this Christmas, Nintendo was looking to the new bundle, along with a Red DSi pack, to drive hardware sales.

On the software side, last week's Japanese top 20 looked like this:

1. Tactics Ogre (Square Enix, PSP): 176,153
2. Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2 (Namco Bandai, PS3): 47,610
3. Super Mario Collection Special Pack (Nintendo, Wii): 43,621 (527,710)
4. Pokemon Black & White (Pokemon, DS): 42,279 (4,410,996)
5. Tongari Boushi to Mahou no Omise (Konami, DS): 40,208
6. God Eater Burst (Namco Bandai, PSP): 31,372 (356,356)
7. Winning Eleven 2011 (Konami, PS3): 30,353 (301,420)
8. Wii Party (Nintendo, Wii): 17,471 (1,191,223)
9. Wii Sports Resort Wiimote Plus Pack (Nintendo, Wii): 14,438
10. Kirby's Epic Yarn (Nintendo, Wii): 13,896 (187,778)
11. Tamagotchi no Narikiri Challenge (Namco Bandai, DS): 10,517
12. Radiant History (Atlus, DS): 10,018 (42,825)
13. God of War: Ghost of Sparta (SCE, PSP): 9,406
14. Fallout New Vegas (Bethesda, PS3): 7,133 (44,382)
15. Love Banchou Love is Power (Idea Factory, PSP): 6,397
16. Forza Motorsport 3 Ultimate Edition (Microsoft, X360): 5,684
17. Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded (Square Enix, DS): 5,391 (162,864)
18. Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo, Wii): 5,244 (2,111,749)
19. Naruto Ultimate Ninja 2 (Namco Bandai, PS3): 5,050 (96,382)
20. Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition PS3 the Best (Capcom, PS3): 5,035