"The 3DS has been topping the hardware charts since its price drop, but with rare exception, it rarely sees software appear in the weekly top ten. Enterbrain's October sales data reveals the extent of this discrepancy.
According to Enterbrain, publisher of the Famitsu magazines, 3DS sold 304,000 units in October, making it the number one platform for the month. The system has topped the Enterbrain monthly hardware charts for the past five months straight.
In software sales, however, the 3DS managed just 122,000 units, meaning only 40% of the system's buyers picked up software with their purchase.
PSP dominated software sales for the month, with a total of 1,298,000 units. Final Fantasy Type-0 was the top selling game, with 503,000 units over two weeks of release. Namco Bandai's AKB1/48 If I Loved an Idol in Guam took third, with 318,000 units.
So why are people buying 3DS hardware on its own? Mainichi Entertainment's report on Enterbrain's sales figures suggests that many current DS owners are replacing their system with a 3DS, but are waiting for the big year end titles to pick up an actual 3DS game.
The first example of a big year end title may be Super Mario 3D Land, which was released last week. We'll find out if 3DS software can sell once sales figures for last week are released tomorrow."
IMO, either people are really, really excited for the upcoming games, or the preinstalled games are are more of a killer app than we think. Since we can't see AR Games/street pass quest on the chartz like Wii sports(like in regions where it's bundled), we tend to forget it can make an impact.
Either way, this is risky business for Nintendo if they are losing money on each unit sold. Sure they are..
EDIT: I'm assuming they made an error in the heading for the article, probably suppose to be October rather than November.
My 3ds friendcode: 5413-0232-9676 (G-cyber)
