Nintendo 3DS Stock Gets Emptied in Japan

Over the weekend, Japanese gamers were flocking in crowds to get a hold of Nintendo's latest handheld system, the Nintendo 3DS. According to reports from the country, the system has completely sold out, with 400,000 systems bought and pre-ordered in total. Japanese retailers apparently expected a sell-out, due to a high demand in pre-orders before it hit stores, and a re-stock was supplied on Sunday.

As for actual official numbers, Famitsu reports that 371,326 consoles were sold and the biggest selling individual SKU (the three versions of nintendogs + cats are counted separately) was Level-5's fifth Professor Layton puzzle adventure, Mask of the Miracle, which sold to around 1/3 of new adopters, totalling 117,589 units.

For the unlucky people who weren't able to get there hands on one at launch, Nintendo have said they will be working hard on producing more and expects to ship 1.5 millions 3DS' by the end of March. Though that's Japan only, the company has bigger expectations for worldwide shipments. Nintendo say they expect over 4 million to be shipped by the end of March in Europe, US and Japan.