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$250 Wii costs half as much as cheapest Sony's PlayStation 3

EATTLE - Nintendo Co. Ltd. sold 600,000 units of its new Wii video game console in the first eight days after its release in the Americas, as the company vies with rivals Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. for gamers' hearts and wallets.

Including sales of accessories and games, Nintendo's Wii-related revenue had hit $190 million since the machine's November 19 release, the company said.

At $250, the Wii costs half as much as the cheapest version of Sony's PlayStation 3 console, which went on sale in the United States two days before the Wii hit the market.

Many fans of both systems lined up at retailers hours or even days in advance of the launches to guarantee they were among the first to claim ownership of the highly anticipated machines.

The consoles are also being hawked on Internet auction sites such as eBay for several times their retail price tag.

"We've shipped retailers several times the amount of hardware the other company was able to deliver for its launch around the same time -- and we still sold out," Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement.

Sony has not revealed how many PlayStation 3 consoles it has sold in North America so far, but has said it aims to have shipped 1 million units by the end of the year.

Microsoft has shipped more than 6 million of its Xbox 360 since launching it in November 2005.