Nintendo recently sent out a press release covering its 2011 sales. I know that a few of you are under the impression the 3DS performed poorly last year. With that in mind, are you surprised to learn that the company sold four-million systems in the United States alone? Remember, Nintendo sold 2.37-million DS systems in America during its first year of availability.
Oh yeah, Nintendo sold a bunch of other things too. Here’s a clip from the press release:
Nintendo sold more than 12 million total hardware units in the United States in 2011, marking the fifth year in a row that the company has accomplished that feat. This includes more than 4.5 million units of Wii, more than 4 million Nintendo 3DS systems, and more than 3.4 million units of the Nintendo DS family of systems. This brings the installed base for Wii and Nintendo DS to 39 million and more than 51 million, respectively.
Certainly Nintendo is in a valley period at the moment, with the DS and Wii at the end of their life cycles. The 3DS is less than a year old and the Wii U is a future release, so expect the down period to continue. The two takeaways here are that Nintendo has recovered nicely from its stumble out of the gate with the 3DS and that even in a down period the company moves an impressive amount of hardware.
Any of you surprised by Nintendo’s U.S. sales figures? Did you expect the 3DS would sell four-million units in 2011?
After they dropped the price in August I figured it would start selling better. I'd buy one but I have trouble playing through my console games right now!