Taipei, July 13, 2007 (CENS)--Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd. and Wistron Corp. are expected to become new suppliers of outsourced components of Nintendo`s Wii game consoles and the Lite-On Group will strive to join the Nintendo camp.

Nintendo recently determined to contract more dedicated assemblers as well as control-chip and component suppliers for its Wii out of concern of diversifying risk at a time when the sales of the game consoles are hot throughout the world.

Wistron is reported to be another assembler of Wii machines after Foxconn Technology of the Hon Hai Group. Sunpuls is reported to share the supplies of controller chips for Wii with PixArt Imaging Inc., an affiliate of foundry giant United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC).

Lite-On plans to strive for Nintendo`s orders for power supplies for the game consoles. Delta Electronics is currently the sole supplier of the devices. So far, Delta has landed orders to make the power supplies for Sony`s PS2 and Microsoft`s Xbox 360 machines besides the supplies for Wii.

It is understood that Sunplus will begin shipping this quarter the chips used as an after-market replacement for PixArt`s chips in Wii. The shipment, industry watchers pointed out, will help Sunplus win original equipment manufacturing orders from Nintendo.

PixArt will remain the only supplier of controller chips to first-generation Wii. Updated type of Wii will have more suppliers of the chips.

Elan Microelectronics Corp. was once reported to strive for the chip orders. However, the company quitted because it was not interested in entering the supply chain by beginning with an after-market supplier.

(by Ken Liu)