Increasing fortunes for Nintendo despite global recession; Wii bucks the trend in America to improve sales performance year on year.

Nintendo will soon overtake Sony as the world’s largest maker of game consoles, according to Bloomberg this morning. Despite everyone examining their wallets more closely in recent months, the start of the US Christmas shopping season – officially marked by Black Friday (the day retail starts making a profit) – has proven to be Wii’s most successful yet. Sales in fact doubled the week after Thanksgiving, with an increased number of Wii consoles rolling off production enabling just short of 800,000 Wiis sold in one week.

President Satoru Iwata of Nintendo Japan told Japanese press yesterday that production of Nintendo Wii will increase even more throughout November. Nintendo DS also showed an increased sell-through rate of more than 20 percent, also coming in around the 800K mark. You can just imagine the cartoon fireworks going off.

Meanwhile the updated version of Nintendo DS, DSi, has been slated for spring or else summer next year. Which could mean September, but anyway. Iwata confirmed that around 500,000 units of the new console that now includes a camera and larger screen, has been meeting sales expectations in Japan. Pff! More fireworks.

Microsoft also enjoyed a buoyant Black Friday, says Bloomberg in the same report. Xbox 360 has sold through 25 percent more consoles year on year. That surely deserves a 21 Gun Salute. Apparently we’re still waiting for Sony to show and tell (is that the faint sound of a sorrowful violin we can hear?)

Anyway, games are still going gangbusters everywhere you look. We might be almost broke, but looks like a lot of people are making sure they’ll have fun this Christmas.