Stat-attack
While many eyes are focused on home video game consoles, Nintendo projects Nintendo DS to be the top-selling system of the year. More than 6 million Nintendo DS portable video game systems have sold in the United States in 2007 through Nov. 30, according to internal Nintendo of America Inc. sales numbers. That's a rate of about one sold every five seconds of 2007, enough to project Nintendo DS will be the top-selling video game system of any kind for the year. Nintendo DS has increased its sales in the United States every year since it launched in November 2004."There's no letup in sight," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Nintendo DS appeals strongly to both core and casual gamers, and its momentum is set to propel us into 2008."
Nintendo DS began 2007 strong, but its momentum only increased as the year progressed. Before 2007, Game Boy Advance held the all-time U.S. Thanksgiving week sales record, with 600,000 systems sold in 2005. But Nintendo DS beat that Thanksgiving week record with more than 650,000 sold.
The huge appeal of Nintendo DS stems from the diversity of software available for the system. Four Nintendo DS games have sold more than 2 million in the United States alone, including New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, Pokémon Diamond and Super Mario 64 DS. Another eight games have sold more than 1 million each in the United States, including Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day, Pokémon Pearl, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Big Brain Academy and four separate versions of Nintendogs.
Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.5 billion video games and more than 430 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario, Donkey Kong, Metroid, Zelda and Pokémon.
