Minor victories are always welcome in these tumultuous times for

Nintendo. The pleasant news this time around is that in Japan, the Wii U has surpassed the Xbox 360 in local lifetime sales.

While Microsoft consoles have never had the same popularity in Japan as

in the States, the 360 has been on the market for a great deal longer

the the Wii U. As the console gets more and more of a hold, it will

encourage the development of more games for the system.

The news

comes bundled with a perhaps more exciting milestone, too. The Nintendo 3DS has

now exceeded the 15 million mark in Japan. It still has 5 million units

to go to beat out the PSP, previous home of

Monster Hunter, but

it is slowly getting there. It’s worldwide sales sit around 40 million

units, more than a quarter of which come from the United States.

Bravely Default and the promise of Super Smash Brothers

offer a good starting point to this year’s Nintendo 3DS library, but if Nintendo

wants to make a great deal more sales in the near future, they will

need some more firepower.

Source: Famitsu

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