Sales Success Stories!
In under three years of market availablility, the 3DS has sold over 43 million units worldwide.
That's more in three years than many platforms have sold lifetime!
Even in North America, one of the 3DS's weaker regions, the platform has outsold the GameCube. It is currently likely to outsell the original Xbox in about a year, and will also probably top the Sega Genesis.
In Europe, the weakest region for the 3DS out of the big three markets, the 3DS has outsold the 2600, NES, Genesis, SNES, N64, GameCube, and original Xbox.
In Japan, the 3DS has outsold EVERY single 7th gen console, the Saturn and N64 combined, and EVERY SEGA console combined. The 3DS is also on track to overtake the GBA in the next year, and the SNES soon afterwards.
In the Rest of the World, the 3DS has outsold the SNES, N64, and GameCube COMBINED. As well as EVERY SEGA PLATFORM EVER COMBINED.
In terms of software, the 3DS is hard to gague due to a large number of eShop and bundled sales. Nevertheless:
In under three years of market availablility, the 3DS has sold over 130 million retail games worldwide. That is an attach rate of about 3 games per system. This is a greater total than every Atari 2600 game EVER SOLD.
Japan in particular is a 3DS hotspot, with over 52 million games sold. That's over 30% more than the N64 or Saturn, nearly twice the Genesis or GameCube totals, and quadruple the 360 total.
4 exclusive 3DS games are among the 100 Best-Selling skus of all time: Pokemon X/Y, Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, and New Super Mario Bros 2. For context, Pokemon X/Y has outsold the PS1 version of Final Fantasy 7, 3D Land has outsold Super Mario Galaxy 2, Mario Kart 7 has outsold the original Super Mario Kart, and NSMB2 has outsold Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii.
Other 3DS games that have sold over 2 million copies include Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Nintendogs + cats, the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and Monster Hunter 4.
