I am basing this number off of the DS's tendency to drop 56% in the week following Christmas. Making the assumption the 3DS will do the same, that puts it roughly 15.07M.

With the Wii previously holding the record, lets compare it to the 3DS.

Wii hit this number November 24th 2007. To compare, it took the Wii:
North America - 53 weeks,
Europe - 49 weeks
Japan - 50 weeks

3DS hits this number January 1st 2012, it took the 3DS:
North America - 40 Weeks
Europe - 40 Weeks
Japan - 44 Weeks

Average these out (even though I am aware the locations are not equal: 50.5 weeks for the Wii, and 41.5 for the 3DS, making it roughly 9 weeks ahead of the Wii in sales to the 15 million mark.

Quite an accomplishment, and these numbers REALLY do serve well to silence the critics who have been overly loud with negativity about how the 3DS will perform.

Quite incredible given the initial months.

Yeah, but it took a drastic price cut to accomplish this....>:)

Now it is safe to say that Nintendo can reach their projection target of 3DS - shipping 16M by the end of March.

I'd say price cut. Someone has to say, right?

Fake edit: Yeah, to slowww.

Holy crap I didn't even realize it was doing this good! :-O

it even beat kinect wow

Hey ,the 16m number is shipping of fiscal year or all.

if It means only this fiscal year,then Nintendo still have 4m to go in 3 dry months.

I don't know why everyone always makes it seem not an accomplishment because it had a Price Cut.

Who cares? The other Systems could have had Price Cuts too. It is still an accomplishment!

It had a price cut, and that is part of what helped lead it to what is an amazing and unprecedented accomplishment in this industry.