Super Mario 3D Land leads 3DS to big sales in Japan last week

Things have been a little dark for Nintendo lately, with an unprofitable year along with a goofy, poorly-introduced peripheral, but now that the first of its big holiday releases is hitting stores things are starting to look better for them… in Japan at least. Last week the 3DS and Super Mario 3D Land both took the top spot in the Japanese sales charts in a big way.

After slashing the price on the 3DS system, hardware sales had been up in a big way, but software sales had remained, well, soft. Apparently in October total games sold for 3DS games in Japan were at the surprisingly low 122,000. Perhaps all the new 3DS buyers in the island nation were just waiting for Mario, as 3D Land sold 343,492 in its first week on sale, nearly tripling sales of all 3DS games from the previous month. Additionally, the third game in the Dragon Quest spin-off series Rocket Slime debuted in the seventh spot, making it two 3DS games in the top 10 for that week.

Of course that’s just one week, and it’s worth noting that for as good as 3D Land sold in its first week, Final Fantasy Type-0 for PSP sold nearly 500K the week before. Still, seeing a game we think is fairly awesome get some early success is good to see. Will the US and European launches go just as well this weekend?

Source: Andriasang