Nintendo Claims 3DS Is Selling Well in the United States

Video game hardware maker and game publisher Nintendo has announced that, according to data offered by the NPD Group for the United States video game market, the Nintendo 3DS handheld has managed to sell more than 1.65 million units since it was released and is now close to breaking the one year sales total of the original DS platform.

Nintendo is highlighting the statistic because it aims to counteract the public view which says that the Nintendo 3DS has performed badly during its first months on the market.

The original Nintendo DS managed to sell 2.37 million units between November 2004 and October 2005 and the company says that most of them came during the holiday shipping season, which is also expected to be very profitable for the 3DS.

Nintendo says that launch of high profile games like Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 will also boost the numbers of the 3DS and will make it a success when 2012 rolls around.

Scott Moffitt, who is executive vice president of Sales & Marketing at Nintendo of America, has stated,d “With a massive lineup of software on the way and the first-year sales record of Nintendo DS in its sights, Nintendo 3DS enters its first holiday season with a full head of steam.”

Nintendo also says that for 2011 it has managed to sell more than 7 million hardware units, when counting both its home consoles and its handhelds, while moving 55 million copies of games to players.

The company also says that the Wii has good momentum going into the holiday season and that a good performance over the two coming months could eliminate all the decreases that the home console has seen during the year.

Nintendo is preparing to launch the new Wii U platform, which is widely expected to arrive during the summer of 2012.