Wii Roundup: Japanese Wii Sales Rebound from 22% Drop as Second Wii Title Hits Platinum Sales Mark and a Surprise New Wii Channel Goes Online

Something tells me that Nintendo's (Pink Sheets: NTDOY) Wii console is continuing to surprise everybody.

However, that is not the only surprise coming from the hose of Mario this week.

More on that in a few minutes, though: the first order of business today is a surprise in and of itself, as the Wii comes storming through Japan after a 22 percent sales drop forced most of us to think that the console itself was threatening to go all "passing fad" on us -- literally. Indeed, the Wii's performance -- tracked by Media Create Co. for the week of Feb. 5 through Feb. 11, 2007 -- saw Wii hardware sales increase to 78,550 -- up from 65,740 during the previous week. That is an increase of nearly 84 percent!

On top of that, two software titles for the Wii platform ranked in top ten for all software sales during the same week -- as reported by videogame community site Punch Jump -- with Wii Sports at No. 2 and Wii Play at No. 3. Additionally, six titles for the Wii platform ranked in the top 50 of overall software sales, beating out every other next-generation console currently on the market.

Media Create also reports that Wii Sports -- currently only sold separately from the Wii in Japan as it is a console sales "pack-in" nearly everywhere else, including the United States -- is now officially a platinum title, with just over 1 million units sold to date. Obviously, this means that when you include the game's distribution in-box with the Wii itself in nearly every other global market, you have a title that is (unofficially) a multi-platinum title as well. Consequentially, this means that Wii Sports has officially joined Zelda: Twilight Princess as the Wii's second official platinum-seller title released to date.