Following yesterday's bad news concerning the PlayStation 3 launch quantities (and postponement for Europe), Nintendo has taken the opportunity to remind everyone that they are on track to meet their launch goals for the Wii console.

In a terse and to the point statement, Nintendo of America said, "Wii is on track to ship in Q4; Nintendo plans to ship 6 million systems to retailers around the world between its launch in the fourth quarter of 2006 and the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2007."

It should be noted that Sony still expects to ship the same number of PS3 units within that timeframe, but because of the manufacturing difficulties there are many who would question whether Sony can really hit the 6 million mark by that date. At launch, only 500,000 units will be shipped worldwide, with 400,000 of those coming to the U.S. However, by the end of the year Sony plans to have shipped 1 to 1.2 million units in North America, according to an MTV News report.

It's not clear how many Wii units Nintendo will ship for its launch, or how many it will specifically allocate for the North American market. Nevertheless, both Nintendo and Microsoft obviously stand to benefit from the delayed European PS3 launch and reduced quantities in the U.S. and Japan. After Sony notified the press, Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter issued a note stating, "There will undoubtedly be some 'substitution effect' from lower PS3 shipments, with a portion of the shortfall offset by higher sales of PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii hardware and software. We have not adjusted our model to reflect this substitution, as it is difficult to quantify, but we suspect that 25 - 50% of the shortfall in PS3 software sales (an estimated $124 million in Europe) will be offset by sales of software for the other platforms."

Pachter, who originally forecast three percent growth in combined U.S. and European software sales for 2006, has revised his forecast to reflect the Sony launch news. Wedbush now expects just two percent growth for the year, while growth estimates for 2007 and 2008 remain unchanged (both 15 percent).

As for the Wii, we hope to finally get some more concrete launch information at Nintendo's big press event in New York, where many expect the company to reveal the exact launch date and price for the console.

In related news, although Nintendo has not yet announced official peripherals for the Wii (other than brief showings of things like the classic controller, light gun, etc.), leading games retailer GameStop is now displaying a number of interesting accessories, many of which have a November 1 ship date. Some of these items include a Wii SD 512MB memory card, a Wii controller glove, travel case, component cables and more. You can check out the offerings here.