Despite missing its very, very lofty sales projections this past quarter, it appears that Nintendo 3DS is doing just fine. According to Japanese sales tracker Media Create, 3DS is the second-fastest selling Nintendo handheld at this particular point in its life, second only to the original (and possibly indomitable) Nintendo DS.
So where does that put 3DS against other Nintendo devices? Well, it’s actually substantially ahead of the Game Boy Advance, with 15 million units sold in Japan in just 154 weeks since launch. By comparison, GBA had managed to move just over 11.5 million in that same timeframe. To be fair, the odds aren’t exactly stacked in GBA’s favor: while the beloved system came out with 3 iterations in 5 years, the 3DS has dished out one revamp per year since its release, if you include the unexpected 2DS. Eh, all’s fair in love and war I guess – sorry GBA.
If the 3DS continues on its current trajectory, it should have no problem outdoing GBA’s lifetime worldwide sales of 81.5 million units over six-and-a-half years. Even if it slows off a bit, there’s still a chance, considering that 3DS has already racked up 40 million sold globally in under half that time.
Satoru Iwata says that 3DS will be Nintendo’s main profit-driver in 2014, and considering the Wii U’s continued struggles it’s certainly good to see confirmation that 3DS is up the task. Like Game Boy Advance before it, it may very well have to drag its laggard console cousin unconscious across the finish line. *Sigh* – the life of a Nintendo handheld.
Regardless of what ends up happening, it’s probably safe to say that the original DS’s 154 million will be damn difficult to topple any time soon.
[Via: Siliconera]
