One year after the official launch of PS3 and Nintendo Wii, the gaming console contest has found its winner. The NPD Group, the research company that tracks the gaming sales in US has revealed today that during December Nintendo Wii has reached one million units mark and now it has a US user base of 6.3 million. That compares to 4.6 million for the Xbox 360 and nearly 2.6 million units for the PS3, according to NPD data.

What is the secret of Wii? Thanks to its Wiimote, which resembles to a TV remote, Nintendo has practically reinvented the gaming.

The magic of the device lies in its controllers, which are hand-held joystick-like devices that allow players to simulate swinging a tennis racket, racing a car, shooting pool, boxing an opponent or lots of other activities. Players do not have to master a dozen buttons to play a game. Instead, they just take the device and swing it like a golf club.

The movement of the controller is synchronised by Wii with the actions of characters or avatars on the screen. In a game of tennis, for instance, if you simulate a backhand swing in tennis, your player on- screen performs that same swing in real-time.

Players can pit themselves against the Wii console or have fun getting two or more people together, each equipped with a Wii controller, to play together.

In fact, Nintendo Wii is a device for all and Wii has been the most successful console not only in the history of Nintendo, but also in the entire history of console gaming itself.

Every single month of 2007, except September, when Halo 3 was launched, has seen the Wii crushing its next-gen competitors in terms of sales, appeal to customers and customer satisfaction.

Despite its technical bells and whistles, apparently Sony’s PS3 has lost the war. Ever since the price of PlayStation 3 was announced, Sony has been heavily criticized for its decision to put a price tag of $600 on a gaming console. Sony argued that given the technical specifications, the price is right, but after the first half of 2007, the Japanese company has unveiled a new 40GB version, price-tagged at only $400 and it has slashed the price of the 80GB version to $499.

After the price cuts, in the last two months of 2007, Sony sold almost half from its total number of PS3, which is a sign that it has finally found the right strategy in order to better compete with its rivals, Microsoft and Nintendo.

Unfortunately, the lack of good games titles was another factor that affected the sales of PS3.

On the other hand, Microsoft understood how important the games are for the hardware sale and thanks to some titles like Halo 3, Mass Effect or Call of Duty 4, Xbox 360 succeeded in keeping up with the outstanding Nintendo Wii. So Xbox 360 honorably ended 2007 at No 2.

Another weapon that Microsoft used in order to maintain in the competition was also the sales discount and the release of new versions like Xbox 360 Arcade.

So, 2007 ended with Nintendo’s undefeatable victory, but we will have to see what 2008 will bring.

PlayStation 3 has reached an interesting price for the gamers and there are rumors that Sony is already preparing for other discount sales. As for the games, some interesting titles have already been announced.

Nintendo will get rid of the production problems with which it has confronted in 2007 and will probably succeed in stabilizing the market request.  

Then again, we might witness either the release of a new version of Wii, or a price discount in the second half of 2008. So far there is no official notice, but a Wii console with a DVD would be welcomed.

For Xbox 360, 2008 will be a tough year. The Microsoft console is already two years old and you can’t release every year a game like Halo3.

Most likely, in 2008, PlayStation 3 will succeed in recovering the distance which separates it from Xbox 360, but all in all we will witness another year ruled by Nintendo Wii.