Nintendo Hardware Sales Increase by 100 Percent, Nintendo 3DS Surpasses 10 Million



Two games that are among the best reviewed of 2013 launched on Nov. 22: Super Mario 3D World for Wii U and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds for Nintendo 3DS. The strong response to these games helped sales of Nintendo hardware systems in November increase by 100 percent over the month prior. This includes nearly 770,000 units of the Nintendo 3DS family, which drove the lifetime total past 10 million to nearly 10.5 million units. Other sales milestones achieved for the month include:



Nintendo 3DS Family of Systems



Pokémon X and Pokémon Y each sold more than 225,000 combined digital and physical units in their second month on the market. This brought the combined life-to-date total to more than 2.35 million units. On Dec. 4, Nintendo revealed special edition Pokémon X and Pokémon Y Nintendo 2DS bundles that should keep the games’ momentum going through the holidays and into 2014.



The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, the sixth Nintendo 3DS title to have a Metacritic score of 90 or higher, sold more than 280,000 combined digital and physical units. That figure jumps to more than 405,000 total units when including the special edition Zelda-themed Nintendo 3DS XL system, which comes with a code to download the game.



A handful of first-party Nintendo 3DS titles saw triple-digit sales percentage increases in November over sales in October. This includes standout 2013 titles such as Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (seventh month on market; 140 percent increase) and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (ninth month; 105 percent increase), and legacy titles such as Paper Mario: Sticker Star (13th month; 280 percent increase), Mario Kart 7 (23rd month; 130 percent increase) and Super Mario 3D Land (24th month; 235 percent increase).

Wii U



Sales of Wii U hardware increased by more than 340 percent over sales in October.



Super Mario 3D World for Wii U, currently the highest-rated next-generation title with a Metacritic score of 94, sold more than 215,000 combined digital and physical units in its first eight days on the market.



“This holiday season, Nintendo is offering an unparalleled combination of value and variety,” said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. “In looking at these results, two things are indisputable: Our hardware is gaining momentum at the exact right time and our software catalog is stronger than ever.”



*Data regarding physical sales of games in November are from the NPD Group. Data regarding digital downloads of games and combined physical/digital life-to-date numbers are from Nintendo’s internal sales figures. All numbers, unless otherwise stated, are specific to the United States only.