Is Wii winning the console race?

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Of all the pundits that tried to call the console race before Christmas, few predicted the Nintendo Wii, with its modest hardware and oddball control system, would still be lining up the punters in March. 436,000 Wiis sold in January, beating the Xbox 360 and PS3 handily, and there's no sign of the pace slackening. The handheld DS is doing nearly as well, tightening Nintendo's 18-year stranglehold on the portable market and capitalizing on its first-rate software selection. A total of 635,000 new Nintendo systems made their way home with eager U.S. purchasers in the supposedly quiet post-holiday period.

Even with that quantity of systems moving through the retail system, both the Wii and the DS remain hard to find in stores nationwide, while the other two consoles are lining the shelves. If you're unfortunate enough to still be looking, your best bet is to keep your eyes on online trackers like ours or resort to the usual auction sites.

Wii games are shifting well, too. Although Wii heavy-hitter The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess sold well in January, it was actually beaten to the top spot by quirky minigame-fest Warioware: Smooth Moves, despite the latter not actually coming out until the 15th. Rayman: Raving Rabbids came third, with under half of Zelda's sales. Unsurprisingly, Wii owners have vast appetites for games that take advantage of the machine's uniqueness.

Nintendo's fast pace of impressive releases continued in March with the surprise appearance of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the N64 smash hit that's remembered as one of the best Zelda games -- if not the best -- of all time. Coming up in the next few months, fans of classic Nintendo systems can expect to see Super Metroid, Excitebike, Mario Kart 64, and Duck Hunt hitting the service.

Nintendo classics... ...coming to the Wii

So even when the release calendar is quiet, as it was throughout February, Nintendo still provided Wii owners with a compelling collection of re-releases and old favorites. 12 of the 20 all-time best-selling video games are Nintendo products (and, incidentally, seven of them feature Mario in some form or other). With all these great titles to draw on, they can keep up this pace for years.