14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo has announced sales numbers for the launch weekend of the new 3DS on the European market, where the device arrived on March 25, saying that all over the continent the handheld has managed to move no less than 303,000 units to gamers.
On the United Kingdom market, the new device has sold 113,000 units, making it the fastest Nintendo device when it comes to sales.
The previous handheld generation, the DS, has managed to sell 90,000 devices when it was first launched while the Wii generated sales of 106,000 units.
Overall in Europe Nintendo says the 3DS was “the fastest selling Nintendo handheld device over a launch weekend”, coming right behind the Nintendo Wii, which managed to sell 325,000 units during its launch weekend in 2006.
The Nintendo 3DS was also launched on the North American market on March 27 and the headquarters in the United States have said that the device has managed to have a better day-one sales performance than any other Nintendo device.
Nintendo of American has not yet announced any actual sales numbers, but the company will probably brag about its successful launches in the coming days, with complete figures and comparisons with previous devices.
It seems that neither Europe nor North American have faced the supply issues that have emerged in the first Japanese sales weekend, when close to 400,000 Nintendo 3DS handheld were sold and shops called for urgent shipments from Nintendo.
The good launch performance in both new territories comes just as the 3DS slows down in Japan where the PlayStation Portable from Sony is close on its heels, helped by the launch of a Final Fantasy IV collection.
One issue that the Nintendo 3DS is facing at launch is a relatively limited catalog of video games that are attractive to the more hardcore crowd of fans.