The Xbox 360 Kinect is THE gaming console of 2012, according to analysts from Kantar World Panel.

The Xbox 360 will take over from Nintendo as market leader, with Playstation 3 coming second in numbers of sales. At CES, Xbox announced the 18 million of the Kinect units have been sold to date.

The Nintendo Wii peaked years ago, according to the analysts, while Xbox 360 Kinect has snapped up the Wii’s target customer – the non-traditional gamer.

A lack of new game releases on Nintendo Wii was also to blame for its decline in popularity, the analysts said.

Analysts Craig Armer and Laurie Krohn told Huffington Post: “Xbox and Playstation3 will continue to perform well in 2012, because the big titles like Call of Duty play well on these consoles. Wii has relied heavily on proprietry games, and has been around for a while, so people are getting a bit tired of it.”

“The new Kinect also appeals to non-core gamers who may have previously bought Wii,” Armer said.

Nintendo’s forecast loss is £534 million, or 65 billion yen, its first loss in over a decade.

“Nintendo has made its first loss in 20 years, and that comes at a time when the console market is dipping. It peaked around four years ago,” Armer said.

He said Nintendo has a fighting chance of regaining top position if the new Nintendo Wii U grabs gamers’ attention when it is released in time for Christmas this year, according to Kantar.

The console sales market peaked in part thanks to the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, adding a whole new audience of ‘non-gamers’ to Nintendo’s core gaming audience.

That same casual gaming audience now engages with games on their smart phone, tablet or using social media.

The analysts also said that Playstation Vita will provide a strong challenge to Nintendo 3DS in 2012, although the success of the new handheld will depend on the quality of games released.

Playstation Vita will be released in the UK on February 2, and is on pre-order for £219 on Amazon.

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You’ll often hear Return Of Samus mentioned as the Metroid that’s ripest for a remake.

That’s probably because it’s the one game in the series most in need of an overhaul. Samus’ enormo-sprite (she takes up over a quarter of the screen height) makes combat much fiddlier than before, as do annoying enemies that range from circling mosquito-like gits to what look like floating polystyrene chips.

Meanwhile, that all-important alien atmosphere is stifled by the Game Boy’s limitations – you’ve seen one featureless green-grey tunnel, you’ve seen them all.

The dull environments also make pathfinding alittle tricky in places, and while the music conjures an oppressive sense of dread, it’s more in the sense of “do I have to listen to any more of this bleeping racket?” And don’t get us started on the low-health alert, an insistent squawk that could easily qualify as aform of torture if UN inspectors took a close look at it.

Battle through those niggles and there’s a purity of purpose here that can make it hard to stop playing. The story simply has Samus rock up to planet SR388 to destroy all the Metroids in order to prevent the Space Pirates from harnessing their power, a kill tally ticking down from 39 to zero as you off the suckers.

Defeat a few and you’ll burrow further into the bowels of the planet – though the environments don’t change much, that gradually depleting Metroid total encourages you to keep digging. It’s refreshing not to have objective arrows pointing you in the right direction all the time, too, although the lack of hand-holding can lead to a lot of aimless wandering.

Not a great game, then, but an important one. This is, after all, where the crucial Metroid story arc began, as – spoiler alert – Samus forms a maternal bond with the hatchling whose mother she recently obliterated.

Otherwise, Return is probably the weakest entry to date, a promising idea stymied by wonky tech.

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