Despite promises of a million systems at Japanese retail by the end of 2006, Japanese publisher Enterbrain reports today that Sony has managed to sell just 466,716 PS3 units to Japan. This figure covers the period from the Japanese launch on 11/11 to the end of the year.

In comparison, Nintendo managed to sell 989,118 Wii units from the 12/2 launch to the end of the year, with the number quickly jumping over the million mark for a total of 1,135,671 units by 1/7.

HMV has acknowledged the Nintendo Wii was one of its hottest products this Christmas - but the lack of stock available to sell has left the chain frustrated. The company was chosen as the official UK launch partner for the Wii, and its flagship Oxford Street store hosted a midnight event attended by Nintendo UK boss David Yarnton along with several celebrities.

While game software and hardware helped the retailer perform well in the competitive Christmas period, pre-ordered stock quickly sold out - and HMV could have shifted many more units had there been enough to go around.

Via News4Gamers.

Nintendo has promised a steady stream of new downloadable games for its Virtual Console service on the Wii, and today the publisher detailed its plans to keep the games coming for European gamers in the first few months of 2007. Nintendo Europe announced it will release 36 games for the Virtual Console over the first quarter of 2007. Of those games, 20 will be pulled from Nintendo consoles of yesteryear, while seven TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine games and nine Genesis/MegaDrive titles will be added to the service.

Sega announced five titles from its SEGA Genesis library: Streets of Rage, Bio-Hazard Battle, Gain Ground, Comix Zone and Bonanza Bros. will soon be available on the Wii Shop Channel for download and play on the Wii’s Virtual Console. Prices start at 800 Wii Points for SEGA Genesis titles. Wii Points can be purchased online or at select retailers at an MSRP of $20 for 2,000 points.

If playing video games makes kids less active - and contributes to obesity - why not create more video games that require activity? That’s the question prompted by a Mayo Clinic research study published in the current issue of the medical journal Pediatrics.

The study is the first to scientifically measure the energy spent playing video games. While the study’s scope is small - only 25 children - it was conducted with great accuracy. Fifteen children were of normal weight for their height and frame; 10 were mildly obese. Both groups were tested while sitting and watching television, playing a traditional video game, playing two types of activity-required video games, and watching television while walking on a treadmill.

The results showed that sitting while watching television and playing traditional video games expended the same amount of energy. When participants played with the first activity-oriented video game, one that uses a camera to virtually “place” them in the game where they catch balls and other objects, their energy expenditure tripled. The result was the same for the lean and mildly obese children. Walking on a treadmill while watching TV also tripled expenditure for the lean group, but showed a nearly fivefold increase for the mildly obese group. While using a dance video game, both groups burned the most calories, but it was considerably more for the obese group - just over six times more than sitting still.