At a minimum of $300 a pop, hitting sales of 400,000 units is nothing to sneeze at. That means that in the first week Nintendo was able to earn a MINIMUM of $120,000,000 in sales off the newly launched Wii U. Factor in that some percentage of these consoles sold were the $350 Deluxe Edition means they the number may be actually be closer to $130,000,000. But how does that compare to console launches in the past?

Back in 2006, the original Wii clocked in sales of 600,000 units in its first week on shelves. That’s a 200,000 unit differential. The Wii U’s launch was more in line with the PlayStation 3’s launch which was also in the 400,000 range that same year showing that the Wii U may be more of a core gamer system as opposed to the mass appeal that the Wii had to non-gamers.

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Even though some may think the new iPhone 5 isn’t a revolutionary device or a “must” upgrade, others obviously feel (and think) differently. That’s right, after only a short time being available, pre-order stock of the iPhone 5 has sold out at Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint.

The devices went on sale this morning at 3:01 AM Eastern, 12:01 AM Pacific and shortly thereafter the company’s initial stock of iPhone 5s was exhausted for all three carriers. Shipping time for new orders placed on Apple’s website reportedly slipped to two weeks just before 4:00 AM Eastern, where it now sits.

For those of you lucky enough to get your order in early, all three carriers are reportedly quoting launch-day delivery, at least for any orders placed as of 8:15 AM Eastern Friday morning.

So, were you one of the lucky ones to get an order in before they ran out? Or, are you gonna wait and see how things go before you jump in?

The PS Vita is Sony’s latest attempt to conquer the handheld gaming market. The technology is impressive, but the marketplace has never been more crowded with the growth of phone and tablet gaming, and the of course Nintendo’s iron grip on portables. The Vita hit stores in Japan last week in advance of it’s early 2012 worldwide release and it made a very admirable showing.

Reuters is reporting that the first two days of the system’s launch saw 321,400 units sold. That number is smaller than the Nintendo 3DS’ initial launch of 371,00 units sold, but is impressive considering the context.

The 3Ds was launching a new technology attached to the incredible successful DS brand. The Vita is coming out after a history of sub par Sony portable devices, including the PSP Go which was a bomb. The sales numbers are very nice for Sony but they need to maintain sales over a few years before the new portable device can be called a win.

In hopes to maintain a strong open for the device Sony has a solid 24 game launch window lineup and will be pushing PS3 to PS Vita connection to make the device a regular part of Sony gamer’s experience.

The Vita will be hitting US shelves in February in Wifi and 3G/Wifi models.

Watch out iPad, the Amazon Kindle is gunning for you and is trying to take away your shiny luster. How? By being a big success that’s how.

To that point Amazon announced yesterday that its third-generation Kindle eBook reader is now the best-selling product of all time on the Amazon.com website. It replaces Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the previous Amazon.com sales record-holder.

The online giant Amazon has not revealed official sales figures for any of its Kindle devices, though recent estimates suggest Amazon is going to sell 8 million Kindles in 2010. Which, in case you don’t know, is a lot of eBook readers.

The company currently offers two versions of its popular Kindle eReader — a Wi-Fi-only version for $139 and a 3G-equipped model for $189. Click through to check out the full press release from Amazon.

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As if breaking a couple records wasn’t enough, Activision announced Tuesday a third record-breaking milestone achieved by its hit, Call of Duty: Black Ops. The latest addition to Activision’s Call of Duty franchise first set a new launch-day sales record when it racked up $360 million in first-day sales.

Then, the game beat previous five-day sales records when it did $650 Million in sales during its first five days of availability. Now, Activision has announced that its extremely popular first-person shooter has pulled in over $1 Billion in less than a month. Yes, that’s quite a lot.

“In all of entertainment, only Call of Duty and “Avatar” have ever achieved the billion dollar revenue milestone this quickly,” said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in a statement. “This is a tribute to the global appeal of the Call of Duty franchise, the exceptional talent at Treyarch and the hundreds of extraordinary people across our many Call of Duty studios including Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer that work tirelessly on the franchise.”

As fans of the game, we can understand why it’s so popular. Let’s hope this means we can look forward to more games like this for years to come. Click through for the full press release from Activision.

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When it first arrived on the scene many people probably scoffed at the iPhone and iPod touch as unsuitable gaming platforms. After all, what can you do, graphics-wise, on the devices to make gaming worthwhile? Well, I’m happy to report that you can, at least in the hands of the folks at Epic Games, do quite a bit.

Since its debut on December 9th, Epic Games’ game Infinity Blade has grossed over $1.6 Million. Based on data from Apple’s Game Center, there were over 271,000 different users who played the game as of Sunday night.

Now here’s the math part, sorry if it hurts your heads. Infinity Blade costs $5.99 for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, which means the title grossed well over $1.6 Million in that short time span. Quite a success for the team at Epic.

Infinity Blade is the first Unreal Engine 3-based iOS game and, along with titles like Rage HD (Which also rocks, btw), it is helping to change the perception that the iPhone, iPad and such are not “real” gaming platforms. Lets hope the trend continues.

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I’m playing it. You’re playing it. Millions and millions of other people are playing it. More to the point, millions and millions of people are buying it . . . and in record numbers. As we told you before, Call of Duty: Black Ops sold very well, to put it mildly, in its first day of release.

Now, the game has broken another record and made over $650 Million in just five days. I’ll let that number sink in for a minute. This amount of sales breaks the previous record of $550 Million in five days set last year by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Also a great game but now, just second best.

“Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment,” said Activision Blizzard CEO, Robert Kotick in the release. ”The title’s success illustrates the mass appeal of interactive entertainment as millions of consumers are choosing to play Call of Duty: Black Ops at unprecedented levels rather than engage in other forms of media.”

For more on this announcement, click through for the full press release.

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How long will it be before we stop using the word laptop? And really, who wants a Netbook? Well, if these recent comments by Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn are taken into consideration, we might have to get used to the word, and to using, an iPad instead.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Dunn remarked that the iPad “had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50%.” That’s a pretty impressive number when you consider that Best Buy doesn’t even sell iPads in every one of its stores.

If you think about it it sorta makes sense though. For myself and many of my colleges, a laptop is a second computer that they use on the road. Or, they have a laptop for the kitchen or the living room for the kids and still rely on a desktop computer, or in my case an iMac, to get the real work done.

The iPad is the perfect casual computer that can fulfill most of the roles of the traditional laptop. You can browse the internet, check your email, watch movies and TV shows, read books, play games and much more all while using a cool and innovative device. Couple that with the ridiculously long battery life of the iPad when compared to most laptops and I think you’ll start to see why this is happening.

The iPad can almost completely replace the laptop for most people. And once Best Buy is featuring the device in all of its 1093 stores, which it’s expected to do by September 26th, you can bet we’ll see that number rise even higher.

In just about two months, Apple has made what must be a record in the tech industry, reportedly selling two million units of their uber-popular iPad. And amazingly, the majority of those numbers came from domestic sales as the iPad only went on sale internationally last weekend. When international sales figures start rolling in, the ‘magical’ tablet will be on course to outpace sales of just about every must-have device, including Apple’s own iPhone.

Additionally, apps specifically built for the iPad’s much larger screen have topped 5,000 in recent days, but represent only a small fraction of the nearly 200,000 total apps most of which are designed for the iPhone or iPod touch. The big concern now seems to be whether the Foxconn factory in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen can produce enough iPads to meet demand. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs mentioned this issue as the new sales figures were announced.

“We appreciate [customer] patience, and are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone,” said Jobs.

Keeping up with demand isn’t Foxconn’s only concern at the moment as an investigation into an alarming rash of worker suicides has begun. More than 300,000 people sleep, eat and work at the sprawling factory complex and thus far in 2010, 10 people have committed suicide, while three others have tried. Other manufacturers besides Apple contract with Foxconn, including Dell, HP Dell, and Sony, each of which have begun their own investigation into worker conditions.

With strong sales of over 300K units this past weekend for the iPad Wi-Fi + 3G version, Apple today issued a statement that it has now sold over one million iPads in 28 days. A pretty amazing achievement considering it took the iPhone 74 days to reach that milestone during its initial release way back in 2007.

Other items of note from today’s announcement include: over 12 Million apps downloaded from the App Store and over 1.5 Million books downloaded from the new iBookstore. That’s a lot of apps and books and they are really just getting started, especially with the book offerings. Imagine that section in six months or a year.

Given today’s announcement, the iPad appears to be a success. Although, even with strong initial sales, it still has a long way to go to catch up with iPhone’s over 50 Million units sold to date. That said, I think it will make it.

Check out Apple’s full press release after the jump.

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Well folks, if you happen to live anywhere else except the good old US of A and you desperately want to get your hands on Apple’s latest beauty the iPad, your wait for the device just got a bit longer. Today, Apple announced that due to high demand in the States, all international sales have been delayed until the end of May.

Here’s the company’s official statement on the matter:

Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad™. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10. We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.

Bummer. Our sincere sympathies for those of you living elsewhere. We hope you get your iPads soon.

Even experienced tech analysts can be wrong, especially if they may have been caught up in some of the recent iPad pre-release hype. Hey, we’re not saying we weren’t excited for the iPad too, just that our predictions may have not been quite so optimistic. What am I talking about? Read on.

Before launch, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster first predicted Apple would sell between 200K and 300K iPads on its first day. But later, after doing some more research and perhaps feeling a bit more optimistic, he bumped up those first day sales estimate to between 600K and 700K. That’s a lot of iPads.

Well, it didn’t do quite that good but still, you can’t argue the thing is a success right out of the gate. Yesterday, Apple announced that “over 300,000″ iPads sold on the first day, which confirmed Munster’s original estimate. Should have stuck to that one I guess. Apple also announced software sales related to the iPad launch, which were 1 million apps in the iTunes App Store and 250,000 e-books in the iBookstore.

“It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world — it’s going to be a game changer,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said in a statement to the media. “iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad.”

Yes Steve, people seem to like the iPad. No surprise there.

Take-Two Interactive has a lot to be happy about. They were pleased to report that BioShock 2 has already surpassed the 3 million unit sales mark since its February 9th release. At its current pace, it already looks like it will break the 4 million in sales the original game did. Some of the success is likely attributed to simultaneous releases of BioShock 2 on XBox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC as opposed to the staggered releases of the original.

Take-Two also reported their latest epic selling release, Grand Theft Auto IV, has topped the 15 million mark across all platforms. This doesn’t even include the downloadable content or Episodes from Liberty City disc pack sales. It’d be no surprise if this year at E3, a new GTA title was announced whether its GTA 5 or a Vice City or San Andreas update.

In Wii and DS news, Take-Two was proud to say that their Carnival Games series has exceeded the 6 million mark and continues to sell steadily. Like many games on the Wii and DS, Carnival Games is experiencing a longer than usual life cycle which lets Take-Two executives sit back with their feet up and not even have to bother planning a sequel just yet.

With the movie business seeing record box office in the form of James Cameron’s Avatar, another business that used to also be thought of as pretty successful seems to have stalled a bit last year. According to Variety, the video game business saw an overall fall in sales of 8% with revenues of $19.7 Billion last year.

That’s down from $21.4 billion in 2008, according to the NPD Group, a company that keeps track of this sort of thing. The industry was expected to take a hit after only four months last year saw an increase in sales over 2008. One of those months, however, was December.

The videogame industry’s $5.5 Billion take in December was the biggest sales month ever, beating the previous year by 4%. Nintendo’s “New Super Mario Bros. Wii” was the winner of the month, selling over 2.8 Million units. Nintendo also sold 3.8 Million Wii consoles during December thanks largely to a price cut on the popular device.

Cost reductions also helped Sony sell 1.4 million PlayStation 3′s and Microsoft to move 1.3 million Xbox 360s. For the year every videogame category experienced a decline aside from sales of portable hardware, up 6%. Console sales were off 13%, and software sales for PC games took an even bigger hit, with earnings down 23% to $538 Million in 2009.

Even with the drop in sales last year, let’s try not to feel too bad for the video game industry. Even though the made 8% less money in 2009, they still managed to rack up $19.7 Billion dollars. That’s a lot of Mountain Dew and salty snack foods.