Nintendo has sold over nine million Wii consoles across the globe, new figures from Japan state.

We reported recently that the motion-sensing games machine has broken the million mark in the UK, and world-wide sales have been similarly strong.

Nikkei Net Kansai says the Wii has overtaken the Xbox 360 as the current leader of the next-generation console war.

The economics co combined figures from Enterbrain in Japan, NPD in the States and GfK in Germany to come to the nine mil total.

Proving the cyclical nature of the games industry, this is the first time Nintendo has bagged the top spot since its heady SNES days.

Overtaking Microsoft's Xbox 360 is significant as the 360 was the first of the next-gen consoles to market and had s year's head start over the Wii.

Sony's PlayStation 3, has only sold 3.7m within the timeframe that Wii have hit nine.

However, if rumours of a stripped down, cheaper PS3 in time for Christmas are true, this will give Sony a massive boost in sales.

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>> Via - MCV