Riveting analysis, it's like being at the horse races.

2DS and Pokemon will do great things for 3DS!

Week 38!

DS 06 -- 141,272
3DS 13 -- 168,359

DS sales hold steady with a couple of new releases, including Gintama DS (34k FW) and Yuu Yuu Hakusho DS (7k FW). 3DS sales fall in the wake of Monster Hunter 4's release, though it remains on top of the DS, reducing the gap between them a bit more. Several games released for 3DS this week, all debuting with under 10k sales.

Week 39 preview: DS sales spike with the release of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. Interestingly, the spike does not drive DS hardware as high as 3DS hardware was the week of Monster Hunter 4's release. 3DS sales continue to decline to about 130k.

The tally thus far:

DS 06 -- 5,550,903
3DS 13 -- 2,989,633
Adv DS +2,561,270

Yes, DS was a Beast, nothing will ever come close, it sold 30mil a year twice

Week 39! Special Third-Quarter End Edition!

DS 06 -- 276,839
3DS 13 -- 136,122

DS sales skyrocket in the final week of the third quarter of 2006, nearly doubling from last week with the release* of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, heralding the start of the franchise's fourth generation. The two titles open to tremendous sales and will be the best-selling games in Japan for the year. The 3DS sees a couple of very small releases, which fail to prevent hardware from falling to about 136k. Still, despite two weeks of declining hardware sales in the wake of Monster Hunter 4's release, this week ranks among the 3DS's top 5 so far this year. For the sake of perspective, however, 136k would be a below-average week for the DS in 2006, even without factoring the fourth quarter into the mix.

THIRD QUARTER SUMMARY:

The weekly comparison was fairly straightforward this quarter until September, when all hell broke loose. The sudden jump in 3DS sales is (obviously) due to the release of Monster Hunter 4. The 3DS managed to best the DS for just two weeks this quarter, but that's better than it fared the previous quarter. I skipped the second quarter entirely, as it was pretty boring, but if you're interested in that chart it's right here. No sense withholding information at this point.

Instead of the sales gap chart (which is now visible in the OP and updated weekly), I present the top 10 weeks of hardware sales overall for the DS in '06 and the 3DS in '13 as of the end of the third quarter.

The really interesting thing (to me) is that the 3DS's highs are as great as the DS's highs. Where the 3DS has fallen short so far this year are in those intervening weeks between major releases. Even in weeks with small releases or none at all, it was as though people were waiting for even the slightest excuse to buy a DS, while potential customers in 2013 are prepared to wait for that one big game they've been anticipating to release, whether it's Monster Hunter 4 or Pokemon X and Y. Take week 24 of DS sales, for example: DS hardware spiked by roughly 80k from the previous week on the back of a few new releases totalling roughly 70k in sales, with even the best-selling of the new games (Digimon World) selling under 50k. Yet even when the 3DS had new releases selling over 200k, it wasn't even close to those 200k hardware sales until Monster Hunter 4 came along.

Though the 3DS fared better this quarter than it did in the second, the DS still increased its lead by over one million units since the end of June. The DS has an overwhelming advantage as we head into the climactic finale of this comparison, a showdown between Pokemon generations fueling monstrous Holiday-season sales.

THIRD QUARTER END

DS 06 -- 5,827,742
3DS 13 -- 3,125,755
Adv DS +2,701,987

Fourth-Quarter preview: DS sales take a breather as the 3DS really kicks into gear with the release of Pokemon X and Y. The DS has a strong finish, selling over 1.5 million consoles in the last six weeks of the year -- the 3DS will have to do better than that if it wants to make the final two months of 2013 a really wild ride. And its primary ammunition in that time period is a large unknown, the release of a game we could never have predicted when this thread was started, a game that could be anywhere from a modest success to one of the biggest titles of the year... how will it fare? Find out on the next episode of Puzzle & Dragons Z! right here in about 9 weeks.

*VGChartz seems to have botched the Diamond & Pearl release date. It first appears in the chart for the week ending September 30/October 1, but calls this week 2 for the games. On the Diamond & Pearl page, no data is presented for week 1. A quick check confirms that the release date was September 28.

holy DS, the 3ds is going to put a good fight, but I'll say 6.5-7 million is my guess...

Week 40!

DS 06 -- 125,392
3DS 13 --120,325

We're entering the home stretch, the final thirteen weeks of the year. For the DS, this is the week following the storm; for the 3DS, it's the week before. No major titles were released this week for either console. DS sales fall in the wake of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl's release, while 3DS sales drop slightly in anticipation of Pokemon X and Y's release. The two are shockingly close in sales considering their placement on opposite ends of the release of their respective Pokemon titles.

Week 41 preview: DS sales fall 20k further with no new major releases. 3DS sales are bolstered to over 200k by the release of Pokemon X and Y. This decreases the gap between the two consoles by more than 100k.

The tally thus far:

DS 06 -- 5,953,134
3DS 13 -- 3,313,741
Adv DS +2,707,054

Week 41!

DS 06 -- 105,310
3DS 13 -- 229,058

With no major new releases this week, DS hardware sales fall to their Q4 low, nearly down to 100k. The 3DS manages to double that and then some thanks to the release of Pokemon X/Y this week to over 1.9 million retail sales.

On a somewhat unrelated note, this boost helped the 3DS overcome an important milestone: it is now tracking ahead of its own sales at this same point last year. This means that the 3DS is on-pace to exceed the roughly 5.5 million sales it achieved in Japan in 2012. That's nowhere near the DS's 8.4 million sales in 2006, but it represents an enormous accomplishment nonetheless.

Week 42 preview: DS sales recover to 118k next week with the release of Custom Robo Arena. 3DS sales will most likely stay well above that despite declining in its post-Pokemon week.

Now we see how the 3DS sells between X/Y's release and the true start of the Holiday season in a few weeks. Last year, it averaged about 70k through weeks 42-44, before the release of Animal Crossing: New Leaf propelled it to over 150k sales, which it sustained for the rest of the year. Over the next month, we'll see whether Pokemon X/Y's earlier release results in a sharper drop before November and overall lower sales that month, or a longer period of higher sales leading into December.

The tally thus far:

DS 06 -- 6,058,444
3DS 13 -- 3,475,138
Adv DS +2,583,306

What hapened to the vita vs. vita thread?