Nintendo DS Strikes 10 Million

Ten million Nintendo DS units sold worldwide, and 550.000 online gamers. Those are the latest official numbers coming straight from Nintendo.

Nintendo's 15 years of unsurpassed leadership in portable video gaming continued unabated through the 2005 holiday season. Sales figures show that Nintendo's dual-screened Nintendo DS, fueled by the new hit software and global Wi-Fi capability, has sold approximately 4 million units to date in North America alone. Combined with Game Boy Advance, the world's most popular portable video game line, Nintendo now enjoys a combined U.S. market share of 78 percent.

Nintendo also reports that the US sales of Mario Kart DS, released on November 14 and featuring live, global Wi-Fi competition, has topped the 1 million mark in just seven weeks. At the same time, lady killer Nintendogs has surpassed sales of 1.5 million units since its US launch in August.

"At a time when some sectors of the video game industry are softening, Nintendo DS and the Game Boy Advance line remain shining stars because of their fun experiences and innovative game play," notes Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "It's important to note that these strong figures represent Nintendo hand-held units and games that consumers have purchased and are now enjoying at home or wherever they like to play."

For comparison, the Nintendo DS launch title Super Mario 64 DS has sold 1.3 million units in the US alone. Other DS games that are enjoying dramatic success in the United States include WarioWare: Touched! and Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

The strong U.S. performance of these titles has been mirrored in Japan, where in just more than one year from its December 2 (2004) launch, Japanese consumers purchased more than 5 million Nintendo DS units. This makes the Nintendo DS the fastest-selling video game machine in the history of the Japanese video game market. In addition, Nintendogs, Animal Crossing: Wild World and the two games in the brain-training series (Brain Age and Brain Flex) achieved sales of more than 1 million units each. This is another record in Japan, as an unprecedented four titles have surpassed 1 million units sold in just more than one year from the launch of a system. In addition, Mario Kart DS and WarioWare: Touched! also are nearing the 1 million sales mark in Japan.

Nintendo did not yet reveal the official European and Australian sales yet, but instead is claiming that the 10 million mark has been reached. Estimates of the European sales are said to be around 3 million, taking the count over to 12 million Dual Screens.

All around the world, players have been competing on the new Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection wireless gaming service. Within seven weeks of the service launch more than 10 million game connections have been made and more than 550.000 unique visitors have connected globally.

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Comments

• 

  Wait till Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are released, Online Pokemon battles....how can they lose. ^_^

  EXC355UM, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  ^^^ whoa i never thought of that

  cha-chingo, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  Sad in Europe the DS sell not to well.

  Olpus Bonzo, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  still whoopin the psp in sales though

  gi4d2, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  any1 know what the psp's sales are? just would like to compare them..

  darkshadow61, 30-11--0001 at 00:00