There’s been a lot of talk of 3DS sales lately, as the last few weeks in Japan it's been hitting record high system and software sales and simultaneously overshadowing the PS Vita's launch. Dissecting weekly Japanese sales charts is fun and all, but just how’s the system doing in this hemisphere? Today Nintendo of America released some sales info for the year, including that the 3DS passed the 4 million sales mark last month, along with big sales for Mario and Zelda titles.
On top of the 4 million 3DSs sold in the US, Americans also purchased 3.4 million DSs and around 4.5 million Wiis, meaning Nintendo sold 12 million total systems in the US this year, which is quite a number. As for software, Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land became the first 3DS games to each sell a million copies in the US, while Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword became the 45th Wii title to break a million copies in the States. Meanwhile, the seemingly unstoppable Mario Kart Wii passed 11 million US sales over the holidays, and evergreen DS hit New Super Mario Bros passed 10,000,000 copies, proving both titles are basically unkillable.
After hitting such sales lows earlier this year, Nintendo really bounced back in the holidays, but it’s not all clear skies from here on out. It’s yet to be seen if the company can keep this momentum going for the 3DS in the new year, and on top of that they have to launch the Wii U, which has already faced a bumpy road since its announcement at E3. Can these same sales be repeated by the end of 2012?
