The Nintendo 64 is remembered fondly by many gamers as the golden age of the video game company. It’s when we not only saw a jump in graphics and gameplay mechanics from the SNES to the N64, but it was a generation of fantastic games. In its lifespan we saw games like Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Battle Tanks, Donkey Kong, and Super Smash Bros. find comfortable homes in the system with the oddly shaped controller. The system sold very well and is generally regarded to be a success, so it’s worthy noting that the most recent reports show that the Nintendo 3DS has now sold more units than the Nintendo 64.

According to a post on NeoGAF by user Aquamarine, which has been verified with my own research, as of September 30, 2013 the Nintendo 64 shipments to retailers number at 32,930,000. The Nintendo 3DS shipments come in at 34,980,000. This is particularly impressive since the system was released in February and March of 2011. In less than three years, the system has been able to sell more than the Nintendo 64 did during its entire time on the market. It should be noted, however, that the Nintendo 64 shipped 224,970,000 software units while the Nintendo 3DS has shipped 122,420,000 units. So the 3DS has some catching up to do with the number of games sold.

The variety of games is still admirable, however. The fact that it can play both DS and 3DS games more than doubles its library. Personally, my Wii U library has three games: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, New Super Mario Bros. U, and Nintendo Land. My 3DS library, however, includes Pokémon X, Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, Ocarina of Time 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, Mario Kart 7, Resident Evil: Revelations, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and a few others. The 3DS has been going strong despite having a slow start at release. Could we see this type of improvement with the Wii U once bigger first party games start coming out? I think so. In the meantime, however, fans of Nintendo can look forward to more support for the 3DS as sales continue to improve. Let us know what you think of these statistics in the comments!

Source: NeoGAF

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