14 DAY TRIAL // Video game hardware developer and publisher Nintendo has announced that it has sold more than 4.1 million units of the new 3DS handheld on the Japanese market, managing to turn around a hardware platform that seemed destined for failure just a few months ago.
The 3DS has been launched in Japan in late February of this year and it managed to post sales of 374,764 units during its launch weekend, which was a respectable figure but nothing ground breaking.
After that moment the handheld has seen a slow but significant decline each week, with players complaining that the company failed to deliver enough video games and content to keep interest up.
In August Nintendo announced that it was cutting the price of the 3DS in order to make it more attractive and that it planned to deliver a number of high profile launches during the autumn launch period.
The handheld has improved its numbers each week during the last months, mainly on the strength of Nintendo made games like Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, each of which has sold more than 1 million copies on the Japanese market, despite being on the market for just a couple of months.
Another big success has been the Capcom made Monster Hunter 3G, which is now standing at more than 730,000 copies sold and is expected to get over the 1 million mark before the end of the year.
On the North American market sales of the Nintendo 3DS are also increasing at a steady pace, with the sales for November reaching 1.65 million units.
The developer of the device believes that the 3DS can go beyond the sales figures of the original device in the line for its first full year on sale.
In early 2012 Nintendo plans to launch a new Kid Icarus game and deliver more content to the eShop store.