Business / Technology

Nintendo, the runaway leader in the video game business, is priming the market for its new Internet-connected handheld gaming system and adding storage capabilities to the best-selling Nintendo Wii.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said during the Game Developers Conference today in San Francisco that the Wii has now sold more than 50 million units since launching in 2006.

In a pleasant break from the Microsoft-Yahoo news, an MTV News report out yesterday suggests that Microsoft is at work on a controller for the Xbox 360 that would mimic the successful motion-sensing remote controller for the Wii from Nintendo. Nintendo’s top U.S. exec said in February that competitors would have a tough time copying his company’s model.

SAN FRANCISCO — I’m here covering the Game Developers Conference for a few days. The show doesn’t have the glitz and slick stage shows of the Electronics Entertainment Expo better known as E3, but for video game developers, this is the place to talk about their craft, network and show off the latest and greatest.

Developers are working on games for a variety of platforms, including mobile phones, consoles and PCs. In recent years, consoles have been the stars of the video game world, while PC games have been pushed to the back shelves of electronics retailers.

A group of industry heavyweights is seeking to change that and reverse the perception that PC gaming is dying. Today, on the sidelines of the conference, they announced the formation of the PC Gaming Alliance, a nonprofit group that will try to counter the perception that the platform is out of vogue. The PCGA plans to push information about the size of the PC gaming market and try to clear up consumer and game-developer confusion about hardware requirements.