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It appears as though the Wii will surpass the Xbox 360 in North America a bit earlier than expected, as Nintendo announced last week that 9.5 million units have sold in the U.S. alone since launch.

The announcement puts a new light on Microsoft's peculiar chest-thumping press release from earlier in the week, when that company said it had reached an arbitrary 10 million unit sold boundary and would therefore "win" the console war. With Nintendo's 714,200 units sold in April, according to NPD, it would need to sell only 500,000 consoles this month to surpass Microsoft's self-imposed milestone, in less time. The Xbox 360 launched a year before the Wii or Sony's PlayStation 3 console.

A total of 188,000 Xbox 360s were sold in April, meaning that Nintendo would need only sell approximately 688,000 units in May to equal its rival's numbers. WiiFit also launches this month, and many analysts believe the balance board peripheral it is bundled with will inflate Nintendo's sales number even more. The console outsold all non-Nintendo systems in April, combined, according to NPD.

Overall, hardware sales were healthy at US$426 million, which was up 26% from $339 million in April 2007.