Who reading this has passed the multi-colored Wii-motes at your local electronics store and thought, “Man, when are they gonna make a black Wii?” We definitely have. While you can send your console off for an expensive paint job, or just do it yourself, rumor has it that an official black Nintendo Wii may actually be happening.

It looks like tips from Gamestop, Future Shop, FYE, and Target are all reporting that a new Wii-bundle will arrive in the U.S. and Canada next month. A shopper has even reported that it’s available for pre-order at FYE. Priced at $199.99, the bundle will include Wii Sports Resort and a Wii-Motion Plus controller add-on.

Japan already has a black Nintendo Wii, and with all the different color options for the Nintendo DS and DSi it’s high time that the United States get to color coordinate this console. We’ll keep this rumor on the back burner for now, but it sounds probable that the new Nintendo Wii in black will be released May 9th in the U.S., as rumored.

Numbers of console and games sales were released by the NPD group for the month of January 2010 today with some not so surprising results. The Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS (including the DSi SKU’s) lead the console war as they continue to dominate this generation in terms of sales. Even after their record setting Wii sales in December, the little white box with waggle controls still is flying off shelves. With that comes five of the top games being Wii titles.

The griefer’s paradise New Super Mario Bros Wii tops their charts, follwed by evergreen favorite Wii titles like Wii Fitt Plus, Mario Kart Wii and Wii Sports Resort. The only surprise on the Wii comes from the critically panned Just Dance from Ubisoft (averaging a score of 47 from Metacritic).

XBox 360 surged back in front of the PlayStation 3, no doubt with some help of their over half a million selling release of Mass Effect 2. The XBox 360′s version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 also outsold the PS3 version by a firm 65,000 units. Co-op shooter Army of Two: The 40th Day debutted on the charts in the number 8 spot, followed by the apocalyptic release of Darksiders, both the games being the XBox 360 versions.

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Late last week, the NPD Group who is in charge of tracking, compiling and interpreting sales numbers for the video game industry released their console and game sales figures for the month of October with some surprising results. These numbers do not include Walmart sales or digital distribution of games. Let’s take a look.

Console Sales

1. Nintendo Wii: 506,900 (up from 462,800)

2. Nintendo DS: 457,600 (down from 524,200, includes all Nintendo DS SKU’s and Nintendo DSi)

3. Playstation 3: 320,600 (down from 491,800)

4. XBox 360: 249,700 (down from 352,600)

5. PSP: 174,600 (up from 146,000, includes all PSP SKU’s and PSP Go)

6. Playstation 2: 117,800 (down from 146,000)

So what does this mean for the video game industry? A few things. Nintendo takes back their top non-portable spot after losing it last month to the price reduced Playstation 3. Back over the half million a month mark, the Nintendo Wii price reduction to $199 had been a long time coming and has shown it was enough of a stimulus to even beat out the Nintendo DS as the top selling console of the month. While Sony made a huge campaign out of their price drop back in September, Nintendo has been more subtle about theirs, only posting in circulars instead of the TV adds Sony has used to attempt to make up ground.

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Score: 6.5

Publisher: Nintendo Price: $49.99

After Wii Sports became the highest selling video game of all time in units, likely due to being a pack-in with the Nintendo Wii, virtual sports fans have been waiting impatiently for its sequel. Their call was answered when Nintendo announced Wii Sports Resort, a tropical take and full game sequel to what many critics referred to as a glorified tech demo.

Though showcasing the technical aspects of the Wii’s motion control and forgoing flashy graphics, Wii Sport’s simple Bowling, Golf, Tennis and Baseball combination became an instant success with those outside the hardcore gaming market. The game became a hit with everyone from soccer moms to senior citizens, making many of the core gaming community believe Nintendo had forgotten them in favor of the casual fans.

Now, Wii Sports resort returns with bowling, golf and ten other new games that feature their new Wii Motion Plus technology, using vectors to allow a closer one to one motion than was previously available on the Wii.

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According to our pals over at Joystiq, it looks like your dream of owning a Nintendo Wii might be coming that much closer to reality in the near future. That is, if the things that’s been holding you back has been the Wii’s price. Over at the site they quote industry pundit Michael Pachter who notes that “”Wii supply has finally exceeded demand,” and that he “expect[s] Nintendo to cut the price of the Wii before [the] holiday.”

If true, this would be the first price drop since the Wii’s initial release in late 2006. Of course, as the site points out (and rightly so) Nintendo could just bundle the system with more software and not lower the price in an effort to stimulate sales. In fact, it was a bundle of the Wii and Wii Sports that made me get one in the first place so I’m not sure lowering the price of the Wii is really necessary at all.

In fact, if Nintendo were to offer a bundle of Wii Sports Resort and another game like Mario Kart, which would be a great, fun combo, I bet that would get people buying again. I guess we’ll find out later this year.