Ha! That number sounds soooo made up. But it's real. Strong Black Friday sales helped push the Wii install base in the U.S. to 37.7 million units. I thought everyone already had a Wii, but so many more were sold this holiday season. Nintendo says they moved 860,000 Wii systems in November alone! Black Friday's numbers were more than half of that, coming in at 520,000. None of those people are waiting around for the Wii U.
The 3DS is also doing rather well, says Nintendo. It's U.S. install base is at 2.37 million after only eight months. 795,000 of those were from November's sales, making for the biggest month for 3DS yet.
I'm sure you can guess which Nintendo games were top sellers. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword sold 600,000 units in its first week. My new favorite portable game, Super Mario 3D Land, sold more than 625,000 copies so far.
Nintendo, can I borrow a few bucks?
Dale North is Destructoid's Editor-In-Chief, a founding editor, and specialist in Japanese gaming. An accomplished musician, Dale was reporting from Japan during the earthquakes of 2011. Luckily, he got the fuck out alive and is home in America now with his wife and beloved corgi, Einstein. Dale is also a co-founder of Destructoid's sister anime site
Japanator. Likes Corgis, Sega Saturn, PSP, iPhone, Photographic tools.
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
24 comments | showing # 1 to 24
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
7:15 PM on 12.09.2011 | 
I wonder if the average person who doesn't frequent game sites even has any idea that ANY company is working on a new console.
ditto.
And speaking of the Wii U it kinda irks me that Nintendo is even releasing this Wii 2.0. $300 more dollars (an estimate, don't quote me) for what should've been available years ago. The Wii should've launched with Wii remote plus and HD compatibility.
Although that Industry Bull hashtag is confusing.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/installed_base
Coulda, shoulda, woulda, its easy to say that now, but at the same time, would you have payed $400, or $500 for a HD Wii in 2006? Probably not, neither would the vast majority of the 91 million people who own a Wii right now. So Nintendo could have failed miserably, if they did what you "think" they should of done. I think the Wii worked out pretty well for them, considering its their best selling home console of all time!
That's kind of the point, sure the Gamecube wasn't an entirely great console for Nintendo financially, but somehow their unprecedented success and revenue with the Wii and DS equates to a 2012 console with Xbox 360-esque specs. Derp.
Same here. The only reason I have one is for my kids (Though I do plan on playing Skyward Sword at some point), and the few others I know that have Wiis don't even play video games. I know there are many hardcore Nintendo fans out there, which is cool, but I think they're a rarer breed than they'd like to believe. If B-Rad's LoZ numbers are true, that's just... wow. That's very underwhelming number for one of the greatest franchises of all time. Just saying.
That said, bring on the Wii U!
The 64 had a solid set of it's own games (even if lacking in certain genres). The GC managed to get most stuff crossplatformed, and had a nice little cache of console unique titles. The Wii... past trash and Nintendo games... has a few unique titles that sold moderately at best and were forgotten?
It's kept them in business, but you can see the awkward position it's left them in now. Third party support for all their platforms is functionally non-existent in the US, and on life support in Japan (almost every good title is lining up for the Vita, not the 3DS it seems like). Can they really survive just on their own IPs? I don't see how they can ever release ANOTHER console and manage to pull that off, and the Wii simply can't last any longer like this.