NINTENDO DS AND WII SET NEW U.S. SALES RECORDS IN 2010

Nintendo DS Becomes All-Time Best-Selling Video Game System; Wii Sells More Than 7 Million for Third Consecutive Year

REDMOND, Wash., Jan. 4, 2011 - The close of 2010 produced two sales milestones for Nintendo in the United States.

According to Nintendo's internal sales figures, the Nintendo DS™ family of portable video game systems has sold more than 47 million in the United States since the original model launched in November 2004. That tally makes Nintendo DS the nation's best-selling video game system of all time.

For the second major milestone of 2010, Nintendo's internal figures show that the Wii™ home console marked its third consecutive calendar year with U.S. sales of more than 7 million - a feat never before accomplished in the history of video games by a home console. To date, the Wii system has sold more than 34 million in the United States alone.

"When we look back at 2010, we see consumers time and again turning to the value and enjoyment of our products," said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. "When we look ahead to 2011, we see new portable technology and more great Wii games that need to be seen to be believed."

Nintendo is set to release its new Nintendo 3DS™ hand-held system in the United States in March. The portable system lets players see 3D content - without the need for special glasses. More details about the system will be announced in the future.

Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit http://wii.com. For more information about Nintendo, visit http://www.nintendo.com.

About Nintendo: The worldwide pioneer in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Wii™ home console and Nintendo DS™ family of portable systems. Since 1983, when it launched the Nintendo Entertainment System™, Nintendo has sold more than 3.5 billion video games and more than 577 million hardware units globally, including the current-generation Wii, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi™ and Nintendo DSi XL™, as well as the Game Boy™, Game Boy Advance, Super NES™, Nintendo 64™ and Nintendo GameCube™ systems. It has also created industry icons that have become well-known, household names such as Mario™, Donkey Kong™, Metroid™, Zelda™ and Pokémon™. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, please visit the company's website at http://www.nintendo.com.

Based on NPD numbers for USA for 2010 Wii sold about 2.3Million in December. VGC has Wii sales in Americas at over 3.4Million with the final week yet to be disclosed.

Interesting to see an official statement about holiday sales. How did you come up with the 2.3 million. What numbers does NPD have through December?

It can be over 2.3 million though as they didn't give specific numbers. For example last year Nintendo said that the Wii sold over 3 million units in December. The final figure from NPD was 3.8 million.

so wait they say its 34 million and vgchartz has it at 39 million..?

congrats to Nintendo, I'm a little bit surprised the PS2 didn't get 7m sales a year for 3 consecutive years in the US.

34 million in America and 39 including  Canada and Mexico.

Hang on Nintendo said over 34M meaning it could very well mean 34.1 plus or whatever, good tracking indeed, got to give credit to ioi,

Edit: Way too slow with this post, three other people had already responded.

The 34 Nintendo said is just for the US. VGChartz has Americas at 40 million, but that also includes Canda, Mexico and Latin America. To get US figures from the Americas numbers people normally use that between .87 and .90 of the Americas numbers comes from the US. So VGChartz likely has Americas in the 35 million range. Nintendo also said they had sold more than 34 million, so I think VGC has US overtracked a little for December, but not by too much.

I thought they were doomed.

I'm disappointed somewhat.

They need to restart the whole buying momentum, and just the 2011 games we know about now won't do it, a redesign should do it.