14 DAY TRIAL // The president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata, has announced that the recently released Mario Kart 7 has managed to sell 420,000 units during its first week on the Japanese market on the Nintendo 3DS handheld, which is double the number posted by the version for the normal DS.
The executive also believes that the 3DS has the potential to reach 4 million units sold before its first anniversary on the market, putting it well ahead of its predecessor.
The original DS handheld sold about 2.37 million units during its first year on sales but the comparison is not very useful because the older device managed the performance during a period when the potential customer base was much lower.
Nintendo says that good sales of the new hardware and of the big video game releases associated with it will mean that the company will be able to once again break into profitable territory when it next reports financial results.
The Nintendo 3DS had a very good launch period, both in Japan and on Western markets, but after that the platform saw a precipitous drop in sales as gamers complained that there were not enough quality video games released for it.
Nintendo has worked hard to rectify the problem and the launch of Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, coupled with the mid-summer price cut, seem to have sparked interest in the game again.
Estimates from analysts are saying that for the month of November the Nintendo 3DS might have sold more than 750,000 units on the United States market, with the numbers for December even better.
The Nintendo 3DS has been primarily marketed with a focus on the unique three dimensional gaming capacities that it offers but players seem to be more interested in getting solid video games than in gimmicks that use the 3D.