THE Nintendo Wii is this year’s must-have games console, and should delight the lucky few who receive one tomorrow morning. But the huge public acclaim for the Wii and its unusual motion-sensing remote control has already ruined Sir Howard Stringer’s Christmas.

Stringer, the Cardiff-born chairman and chief executive of Sony Corporation, is relying on PlayStation 3 to help revive the misfiring Japanese electronics giant that he has run for the past 18 months. This Christmas, however, the Wii is estimated to be outselling the PS3 by more than two to one.

The faltering progress of Sony’s new games machine has been the subject of constant debate, a testament to its commercial importance. Yet the PS3 appears to have been blown away by the early success of a rival that went almost unnoticed before its launch last month.

All the focus has been on Sony’s battle with Microsoft, the software giant that launched its Xbox 360 console a year ago. Nintendo was regarded as a distant No 3 — no longer able to match its rivals’ firepower.

The Wii’s graphics engine is technically less sophisticated. But Nintendo has compensated with the novelty and appeal of its remote control, which allows players to swing at, say, an electronic tennis or golf ball as if playing the game for real. Apart from anything else, the “Wiimote” has generated lots of media coverage.

One report declared the Wii is “the best excuse to get off the couch. Anyone who plays the included Wii Sports will almost certainly come to the same conclusion: this thing is really fun! Seriously, button tapping can’t compete with this system’s intuitive, tactile remote controls that must be swung around”.

Van Baker at Gartner, the research-and-analysis firm, said: “It’s created some excitement around gaming that has not been there in a long time. Nintendo’s titles are more family-friendly and more fun.”

The Wii is also much cheaper, costing $250 (£127) in America, or £179 in Britain. The Sony PS3, which is not yet available in Europe, costs either $500 or $600, depending on the machine’s memory-storage capabilities.

In America, analysts believe Sony is struggling to hit the 1m sales target it has set for the end of the year. In contrast, Nintendo’s Christmas sales look likely to exceed 2m.

Baker said: “My best guess is that Sony has sold 300,000 to 400,000 units. They’ll get about 750,000 units, or a little more. That leaves them with a lot of ground to make up.”

Both firms are struggling with supply shortages, although Sony’s problems are more severe — it was forced to postpone the European launch of PS3 until next year.

“The big challenge for Sony is that PS3s are so hard to get,” said Baker. “To a large degree, many people are buying something else. Sony is going to have to battle to retain the market share that they’ve had historically. They’ve given a two Christmas advantage to Microsoft, and a one Christmas advantage to Nintendo.”

The number of consoles in the market is important because it provides the platform for lucrative game sales, the more profitable end of the $27 billion- a-year industry. Sony and Microsoft both lose money on console sales, but experts believe Nintendo makes a decent profit on the Wii. ()