CVG

Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey expects Nintendo to ship over eight million 3DS units in the West during the handheld's first full financial year on the market.

"We're assuming Nintendo can sell-in 8.17 million 3DS units to the Americas and Europe through the company's fiscal '12 period (March ending)," he said in a research note today.

Nintendo has forecast four million 3DS sales in the portable's first month on sale, which is the last of its current financial year.

"We believe initial sales of the 3DS will be amazingly successful when you consider a global addressable market of nearly 150 million and 65 million DS and PSP installed bases, respectively," said Hickey.

"We also anticipate an elevated buzz environment surrounding a glasses free 3D experience; combinated with initial supply shortages and a strong line up of launch games that will likely appeal as much to adults as to the traditional pacifier wielding DS player.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/290229/news/3ds-to-ship-8-million-plus-in-the-west-next-financial-year/

I expect it to sell 1 Plus myself. I can't be wrong, because I added the plus. I would say it would easily get above 10 million witihin one full year, more realistic 13-15 million. 

They have a very specific number there- 8.17 million. I think that's folly. Nintendo expects to sell how many in the west on launch week (which is EOY)? And then to only make that many more for another full year is going to have massive shortages. I would have hoped that Nintendo would have learned from the Wii shortages to have more plants up from the beginning to make these...

forgot to say "according to analyst..." ...

8.17million? Pah... It'll clearly sell 8.19million.

That's a ridiculously low number.

4m in March alone (as that's all Nintendo is shipping) and then April11 to March12 (next fiscal year which is the time frame the article is referring) they'll sale an easy additional 15-20m depending on how many they can produce.

They only talked about USA and europe, they didn't count Japan or rest of asia. Nintendo is "only" shipping 2.5m outside Japan in march. Yes, number is still too low but because Japan probably has around 30-35% of the worldwide sales (handhelds are most popular relatively in Japan), 8m sold in west means about 12m sold worldwide. 

Nintendo could sell 8.17m in just Q4 2011 in just "the west" (guessing that's code for NA PAL regions?).  Hell, they could probably sell more if they could supply more.

Nicely done :p

Seems like a fair number.