Nintendo DS Passes 50 Million Units Mark in US

Nintendo has confirmed that the DS family has passed a massive sales landmark. The best-selling video game system in US history reached another milestone in September: lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS family has now surpassed 50 million units, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States.

Overall, for the five-week tracking month, which reports from 28th August through to 1st October, 2011, has software standings as follows:

Top 10 Software (Physical retail copies only)
1.) Madden NFL 12 (Electronic Arts, 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP)
2.) Gears of War 3 (Microsoft, 360) - >2,000,000
3.) Dead Island (Deep Silver, 360, PS3, PC)
4.) FIFA Soccer 12 (Electronic Arts, 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, 3DS)
5.) NHL 12 (Electronic Arts, 360, PS3)
6.) Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Square Enix, 360, PS3, PC)
7.) Resistance 3 (Sony, PS3) - 180,000
8.) LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (LucasArts, Wii, NDS, 360, 3DS, PS3, PSP, PC)
9.) Call of Duty: Black Ops (Activision Blizzard, 360, PS3, NDS, Wii, PC)
10.) Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (THQ, 360, PS3, PC)
XX.) Star Fox 64 3D (Nintendo, 3DS) - Roughly 130,000 (StarFox Command on DS sold 137,000 in its first month, but on a much larger userbase)
XX.) Kirby Mass Attack (Nintendo, NDS) - 66,000
XX.) Bit.Trip Saga (Aksys, 3DS) - ~3,000
XX.) Bit.Trip Complete (Aksys, Wii) - Less than 1,000

The Nintendo DS forever changed the gaming landscape, and the fact that consumers continue to embrace the platform is a testament to its value and mass appeal. Our hand-held story continues with the Nintendo 3DS system, which just had its second consecutive month of growth and enters its first holiday season with a monster line-up of games, including Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7.
- Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Hardware
1.) Xbox 360 - 438,000
2.) PlayStation 3 - Between 364,000 and 374,000
3.) Nintendo 3DS - 260,000
4.) Wii - 240,000
5.) Nintendo DS - 145,000

Total Hardware Installed Userbase (majority as of October 2010)
1.) PlayStation 2 - 45,477,065
2.) Nintendo DS - 42,308,554
3.) Game Boy Advance - 36,093,054
4.) Wii - 35,000,000 (as of February 2011)
5.) Xbox 360 - 22,165,021
6.) PlayStation Portable - 17,601,120
7.) Xbox - 14,500,480
8.) PlayStation 3 - 13,758,004
9.) GameCube - 11,769,728

Nintendo also went on record to note:

Nintendo sold more than 260,000 Nintendo 3DS portable entertainment systems, an increase of more than 10 percent from the previous month. Nintendo has sold nearly 450,000 units of Nintendo 3DS following a price reduction on 12th August.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D became the first Nintendo 3DS title to surpass 500,000 total units sold in the United States.

The 273 million software units sold for the Nintendo DS family equates to more than 107,000 games being sold per day, every day for almost seven years. More than 273 million units of software have been sold for the platform in the United States, including 24 of the top 25 and 43 of the top 50 best-selling portable games in this hand-held generation.