Associated Press (click to enlarge)

Nintendo expects to sell about 25 million Wii consoles this year.

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Wii won't be discounted

The big gaming console headlines today are about Nintendo's announcement that it won't be lowering the Wii's price anytime soon.

As my 5-year-old likes to say when confronted by obvious news: Well, duh.

After all, the Wii still is racking up blistering sales totals, outpacing sales of both the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. And of those three, it's already the least expensive at about $250.

And, according to Nintendo of America's president, the average Wii sits on a store shelf for only an hour before it's purchased these days.

But, as BusinessWeek says (and it's my favorite phrase of the week in a business story): "not all is jolly in Nintendo-land." The portable Nintendo gaming system, the DS, is expected to see sales shrink a bit this year. And if the economy keeps slowing, the Wii is the most prone of the "big three" consoles to see its sales affected, analysts say.

For now, however, it's not hard to understand why Nintendo is tempted to keep its prices steady and watch the big bucks keep rolling in.