Console shortages aren’t exactly news with the Wii still flying off the shelves around the world and projected shortages for another holiday season. What’s completely unexpected is the fact that Microsoft is officially apologizing to Japan for a shortage of Xbox 360 consoles. After years of gamers claiming that the Japanese avoid American products like the Xbox due to some anti-American stigma, things seem to be going differently.

It’s most likely due to Tales of Vesperia which has turned into the fastest selling Xbox 360 game in Japan. Sales of the console were up to almost 25,000 in the first week. Microsoft have promised that more 20 gigabyte models will be shipping in September after an apology to their business partners, retailers and their customers. In the past the action-shooter heavy focus of the Xbox 360 lineup has kept many Japanese gamers close to their PS3 and Wii, but with the Xbox 360 getting a foothold in Japan we might see more developers porting their games to the Microsoft console.

‘Hardcore’ gamers can bash on the Wii all they want, Nintendo is still trumping every other company in terms of sales. In July the Wii sold 555,000 units and the DS sold a staggering 608,400 handhelds. Sony was the runner up with 224,900 PS3s sold and Microsoft came in at last place with 204,800 Xbox 360s sold, not a bad peformance for a console that’s been on the market a year longer than the PS3 and Wii. Unfortunately it looks like Sony and Microsoft have a long way to go to catch up with Nintendo as the combined sales of their consoles doesn’t even reach the sales numbers of the Wii.

While at the end of the high-def format war Sony’s Blu-ray stood victorious, many advocates of each camp were quick to point out that although HD-DVD had capitulated, standard DVD sales were still dwarfing the performance of HD products on a grand scale. A study researching the sales performance and future potential of Blu-ray products shows that for the most part consumers aren’t buying many Blu-ray players with one exception: the PS3.

Out of 1,000 people surveyed less than half of them planned on buying a Blu-ray player and 23% said they would purchase one but not until 2009. While Blu-ray players aren’t quite as expensive as they used to be, it’s not the relatively high price of the player that’s keeping most people on DVDs: the real culprits are the High-Definition TV and the degree of difference between the quality of HD and regular DVD video. Even though half of those surveyed said that the quality of Blu-ray is much better, the problem is that for most it’s still not worth it. As a Blu-ray owner myself, the only thing that has really been spectacular on HD is any nature programming.

Whether it’s nostalgia, people looking to catch up on the series or former players who are looking to re-hone their ubercharacter building skills after giving up hope of a Diablo III, the Diablo Battlechest has shot to the top sales spot on Amazon’s PC games chart. It’s even #18 across all platforms. It’s also currently listed as sold out.

The announcement of Starcraft II also sold massive amounts of the original. Maybe that’s Blizzard’s business model: wait until everyone’s loaned, sold or tossed out their copies of the previous game before announcing the next and they’ll be so excited that they won’t mind shelling out more cash to get back into it.

Continuing their story of nonstop success, Maxis’ latest endeavor Spore has topped the sales chart in North America for the week ending June 21. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the full game – since that’s not scheduled to ship until September – but the recently released Creature Creator, a sample of the studio’s work in the upcoming life simulation title.

The Creature Creator, which lets users fulfill their lifelong wishes of creating penis monsters, beat out another Maxis creation – The Sims 2 – for the top place, also beating out hardcore games such as World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. The game’s strong sales also saw it appearing at number six on the All Categories list.

Funcom has announced that their recently launched MMORPG Age of Conan has reached the #1 spot on the PC charts. They go on to say that the game has sold out in several retailers nationwide, due to the games booming success, and that over 8 million unique visitors from around the world have visited the official website.

Age of Conan developers are hard at work evolving the game to make for the recent influx of new subscribers, but to what extent will the game grow? Is it possible that this gore-laden MMO could topple Blizzard’s World of Warcraft? If things continue to go as planned it is quite possible that Age of Conan will be a competing factor to the MMO mammoth.

Die hard collectors of games from yesteryear are sure to go crazy over Nintendo of Canada’s latest charity stunt. Apparently, according to Joystiq, they are clearing out their warehouses, and auctioning of their contents with proceeds going directly to the United Way charity.

The auction includes 421 brand new, in the box, sealed games for classic Nintendo consoles like the NES, SNES, and Gameboy.

You can head here to browse the various auctions that Nintendo of Canada has up. Beware though: High rollers only, the highest bid is currently at $1,013.07 which you can view here.

This will come as a surprise to no one: Nintendo’s WiiFit has run out of stock in the UK.

Having been released just about a month ago across Europe, Nintendo’s WiiFit was met with much appraisal as it steadily secured 2nd place on the sales charts. Well, all that has changed as the fitness simulator has disappeared from the UK sales charts.

However, WiiFit’s disappearance is due to Nintendo’s inability to make supply meet demand, rather than decreased interest in the game. Rest assured though as Nintendo has stated that it is only a matter of time before the game is, once again, readily available across the UK.