Good job, and well deserved

Being YoY is nothing to brag. This is the important picture:

I just hope 3DS will break the 20M mark. :-/
Under 20 million for a Ninty handheld in the US is very terrible...
For a comparation:

DS: 54,000,000
GB: 40,000,000
GBA: 38,000,000

Good. Keep denying the reality.

That Gameboy number is a bit misleading since it's a 2 generation device. Through March 1994, Gameboy had shipped 14.81 million in the Americas so 3DS is actually tracking much higher than Gameboy.

I'm guessing

DS: 54,000,000
GB: 40,000,000
GBA: 38,000,000
3DS: 22,000,000

Is how it'll all shake down in the end.

Nintendo better be prepared with their next-gen portable from day 1. 

Game Boy Color shipped 16 million in just two years in the Americas alone, which trumps the 3DS in oh 4 years. I even discounted a portion of the fiscal year ending March 1999, even though technically the GBC probably accounted for more than 50% of the GB shipments in that year too. 

So yeah you can break it down, it does OK compared to the Game Boy, but the GBC, GBA, and DS all demolish it in the US. Basically every handheld since Pokemon's release in the US in fall 1998. 

The odd thing is 3DS is going to be the first time in Nintendo's handheld history I think where the Japanese market will sell more handhelds than the US.

Japan is at 18.7 million 3DS' sold through roughly, the US at 15 million ... that's pretty much a given now that the US 3DS is not catching the Japanese one.

The US actually might be headed towards being Nintendo's lowest market for handheld sales. I think Europe may have hit 15 million sooner.

I think at some point Nintendo is going to have to make a decision:

Either they stick with their stubborn Japan-only method of company management, or they are going to have to make major concessions in management structure (that means giving people at NOA autonomy), marketing, etc.

It could be that or simply watch the US market continue to slip away through their fingers.

And I think this is going to be extremely difficult for Nintendo to do, because they are overrun with old fart Japanese board of directors who don't want to cede any power to the American division.

They could use Arakawa-Lincoln so badly right now. Iwata also needs to step down as head of NOA, that's a joke of a title position since he himself admits he doesn't understand the US market very well; hire someone who SPECIFICALLY knows the US market for crying out loud.