NEW YORK

Nintendo says Wii sales got a big boost on Black Friday

In a told-you-so moment for Nintendo, sales of the Wii console are picking up, with 600,000 of them sold during the week of Black Friday, according to the company.

Nintendo Co. said it sold 900,000 units of the DS handheld gaming system during that time. Put another way, the Japanese video game company said U.S. shoppers bought about 9,000 Nintendo systems every hour during the week of Black Friday. It did not provide international sales figures.

Sales of the Wii have dropped this year as shoppers opted for high-definition consoles from Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. And the yen’s strength against the dollar cut into the company’s bottom line. But Nintendo has maintained it will do well during the holidays, as it always does.

Sony, meanwhile, said it has sold 4.1 million units of the Move motion controller worldwide since it went on sale in the U.S. in September for most regions except Japan, where it hit store shelves in October. But these numbers don’t reflect retail sales to individual consumers — only to retailers.

Advertisement

And Microsoft said that it sold 2.5 million Kinect gaming sensors since Nov. 4. The company did not say how many of these were sold as standalone units as opposed to bundles with the Xbox 360 video game console. Microsoft is hoping that the Kinect, which lets players control games using their bodies, hand gestures and voices, will broaden the reach of the Xbox.

SAN FRANCISCO

BP’s oil spill swamps list of Yahoo searches in 2010

It took a man-made disaster to topple a celebrity from the top spot on Yahoo Inc.’s annual list of most popular search requests.

BP PLC’s massive oil spill in the Gulf Coast drew the most interest among the tens of millions of people that used Yahoo’s search engine during 2010. The Internet company released its top 10 rankings last week.

Michael Jackson was Yahoo’s most requested subject in 2009, the year that the entertainer’s death stunned the world. Britney Spears, another star-crossed singer, held the No. 1 position on Yahoo’s search list from 2005 through 2008.

Advertisement

After falling to No. 5 last year, Spears dropped to No. 10 on Yahoo’s list this year.

Although Yahoo’s search engine is the second most used on the Web, it’s not the best barometer of people’s online interests. That’s because Google fields billions more search requests than Yahoo, Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and AOL Inc. combined.

Bing and AOL released their top searches earlier last week, with reality TV star Kim Kardashian topping Bing’s list and golfer Tiger Woods leading the pack of celebrities at AOL. Kardashian came in fourth on Yahoo’s list and seventh in AOL’s celebrity rankings; Woods was third on Bing and didn’t appear among Yahoo’s Top 10.

Google doesn’t plan to break down its top searches until later this month so it can get an even better handle on what piqued Web surfers’ curiosity this year.

As usual, pop culture dominated the rest of Yahoo’s Top 10. Other celebrities on Yahoo’s list included teen singer and actress Miley Cyrus (No. 3), singer Lady Gaga (No. 5), actress Megan Fox (No. 7), teen heartthrob Justin Bieber (No. 8) and TV’s top-rated show, the American Idol talent competition (No. 9).

Soccer’s World Cup, which drew huge crowds and television audiences in June, grabbed the second spot on Yahoo’s list while Apple Inc.’s iPhone, came in sixth.

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.