THE WII remained the best selling system in Japan during the week ended February 10, while the PSP increased its weekly lead over the DS.

Nintendo’s Wii shifted 81,737 units to remain on top of the hardware chart. Sony’s handheld moved almost 76,000 units while the DS lagged behind with 60,500 sales. More at Next-gen.biz.

If you're already bored of the current console wars, you may be interested in when the next generation battle will begin.

Evan Wilson from Pacific Crest Securities, believes Nintendo is lining up a new edition of its revolutionary console in 2010, with Microsoft unveiling a new Xbox later that same year.

He also says that Sony will weigh in with a full redesign of the PSP, which will go up against an all-new DS Lite.

Xbox 360
We've not heard much lately concerning an Xbox portable, but rumours of the 'Xboy' have reared their head again, after a Ziff-Davis survey hinted at marketing research for a Microsoft Xbox handheld.

The original Xbox green might not have been so green after all - clothing gear featuring a different blue logo has appeared from the ether, at 8bitjoystick.com. The site also pictures an orange Xbox, which was produced for testing.

Also from 8bitjoystick, is news of the next iterations of the Xbox 360.

Apparently there are currently three more Xbox 360 motherboards in the works. They are codenamed Jasper, Opus and Valhalla.

The original Xbox 360 motherboard is called the Xenon with both a 90 nm CPU and 90 nm GPU. Next was the Zephyr motherboard with HDMI. Currently on the market is Falcon with a 65 nm CPU but with a 90nm GPU. Jasper will come with both 65nm CPU and GPU.

The Opus project is a Falcon generation motherboard designed to fit in a Xenon case. It will utilise a 90 nm GPU with a 65 nm CPU. Opus solves a major hardware recycling and inventory problem since Microsoft currently has millions of used Xenon cases from RROD'd systems. It will not come with HDMI.

A Valhalla Xbox 360 will be a combined 65nm CPU and 65nm GPU on one, unified chip. The chip is called Valhalla, the motherboard name is currently unknown.

PS3/PSP
According to data released by Sony Computer Entertainment America, downloads via the Playstation Network increased to 7.9 million in January, Gamesindustry.biz reports. That's up from the 6.6 million downloads the previous month.

Later this year will see the launch of the PS3's PlayTV, a DVB-T PVR device for Sony's flagship console. Fortunately this will be launched in the UK unlike the PSP TV tuner. The BBC has a clip of the system in action.

Some old PSP phone mock-ups are doing the rounds again. They may be old but they're worth drooling over.

Dark-AleX has just released a hack for the PSP that boots from the Memory Stick, and will allow you to select any firmware version you so choose.

The app, dubbed Time Machine, can also resurrect PSPs with destroyed firmware. µ