Point by point

Point 1 -- Awarded.

Point 2 -- Ultra violent games are not true core games. And NMH sold the most of any previous Suda51 game, so using it as a poor sale example does not work. No point awarded.

Point 3 -- They will. MHG comes out with a demo for Tri in two weeks (which may be why Nintendo does not need to bump up anything). MH Tri follows later this summer. DQ X is probably next year -- and that is as big as any series in Japan. So no point awarded at this time.

Mike from Morgantown

^ DQ games can be released on any day of the week, that stupid myth needs to die.

As David Allan Coe said, "You can take the points your awarding me and shove them."  Still on a console that has by far biggest install base of any one of the consoles out there, no M rated game has come anywhere near selling 1 million copies (well, actually a couple have but that's not a big ratio of games on a system that has 832 games).  You would think 1/50th of its audience would support games with mature storylines.  Quentin Tarantino's films never fail to do well at the boxoffice.  And it can't be blamed on No More Heroes quality, it has a higher critical  score than any of the Wii series games and they have all passed 10 million.

My earlier point was that the Wii is perceived as a family friendly system in the West and that is why the M-rated games on there haven't done so well.  And if its not perceived as a family friendly console in the West, then why did big family friendly media watchdogs run out in droves to complain when Madworld was released to say, "We can't have these types of games on our console, Nintendo."?

There are couple of things i want to say about the bolded part.

Firstly Demons Soul is not a big or establish franchise and it has more than doubled its launch week sales.. which is really very very good in Japan for PS3 game. and without any major advertisement... so calling it a big game is simply wrong i believe.

Secondly these other games have done well in the respect that they have pushed avg weekly sales of PS3 in 20k.. which is without any price cut and any major release.. So with no new release on Wii and PS3, PS3 is winning.. Otherwise we have seen how short PS3 boast use to be, that with the release of MGS and other mega hitters of last yr, it wasn;t able to win even a single month against Wii.  So definitely now we are seeing more consistant sales of PS3 hardware and also Software. PS3 software are remaining in Top 10/30 for considerable more period of time..

So in the grand scheme, it does show that PS3 has still a very good chance of putting up good numbers in Japan if it continue to get software.. I mean if it keep getting some major release every month and some good title every other week, it is going to be a considerable force in the market. Selling 1:1 to Wii is a lot better than selling 1:6 to Wii, which it was managing last yr..

Credit should be given where it is due.

Could be the same this month. Not really any system sellers on Wii in April.

MH3 and Wii Resorts Sport is definietely the drive Nintendo needs to gain back Nintendomination in Japan

I think Wii/PS3 are going to follow a pattern like DS/PSP last year, with PS3 winning a lot of the year by time... But with Wii Sports Resort and Monster Hunter 3, I think Wii will win the year by a small margin in Japan.

That's not exactly a good situation for Nintendo.

I'm guessing that Dragon Quest 10 is a 2011 or even 2012 title. They don't come out very often, and usually very late in a console's life. The plan with DQ games since PS1 has been to wait for a huge (20m) install base and then capitalize on it; they don't care about helping to push hardware sales.

I think folks are right that the lack of the Wii Sports bundle could be hurting them. Nothing sells a great game like playing it, and Wii Sports basically invites people to play it like no other. But even games people were once interested in, but never played, become old news when there isn't something pushing it back out there, or giving them an opportunity to try it.

I think the rise of the PSP is hurting them too, and that it's foolish to think that handhelds and home systems don't compete, especially in Japan. If not consumers, PSP certainly competes for developers. And IIRC, Wii has by far the least software titles in Japan of the three regions.