If you get your Wii or DS from this Santa, chances are, it won't work

It's approaching the season of giving but, for the most part, that giving requires some buying at some point and the President at Nintendo of America is confident that consumers will be buying a lot of Nintendo hardware this Christmas as the Holiday season is more important to the company than its rivals. Apparently.

Speaking at the BMO Capital Markets Annual Digital Entertainment Conference on Thursday, Reggie Fils-Aime expects a strong November and December sales performance as the familiarity and recognition of Nintendo's brand and key franchises gives the company an edge over its rivals when it comes to gift-giving. In 2009, nearly half of hardware sales were made in those two months so it's clear Nintendo is hoping history repeats itself. In terms of games:

The disparity on the software side is even greater... For Nintendo platforms, 44 percent of all game sales came during November and December. For the rest of the industry, that number was only 33 percent.

Holiday releases like Donkey Kong Country Returns, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, and Disney Epic Mickey will hopefully fulfil expectations, as with the various colours of limited edition bundles.

Fils-Aime also quoted sales figures from NPD, stating that Nintendo has currently sold 43.1 million DS units and 30.4 million Wii consoles in the U.S. market alone. Microsoft has shifted 21.9 million Xbox 360s, whereas Sony has moved sold 17.7 million and 13.5 million units of the PSP and Playstation 3 respectively. The PS3 has only sold a relative handful more than the Wii Balance Board which itself has shifted 12 million units.

With the upcoming launch of the 3DS, gamers wishing to see a Wii successor might be silenced for a while, but a new Nintendo home console can't be too far off. Can it? Speaking to Kotaku, Fils-Aime offers the following as a rough plan:

As we sit here today we're saying the Wii has many, many more units to sell... After we've reached an installed base of 45 million here in the U.S., we can have a conversation about the next generation.

You heard the man. Get spending.

[source gamasutra.com, via kotaku.com]