After one week on North American store shelves, Nintendo is already reporting record sales for 3DS. Can the same be said for software sales? Read on to find out!

(more…)

A staggering one in three households in the U.K. own a Wii, Nintendo revealed today, while a further one in six Britons own that plucky little portable, the DS.

The impressive numbers were compiled by stat tracker GfK Chart-Track. Given the first party push happening this holiday season, Nintendo may very well control one in two households by the end of the year.

World domination, anyone?

From Nintendo’s megaton presser yesterday, some numbers:

• Virtual Console now has 347 titles, WiiWare has 189, and DSiWare 12
• 76 Wii titles have sold in excess of 1 million copies
• 22 of which are first-party
• 54 of which were made by third-parties
• 108 DS titles have reached 1 million or more
• The DS number breaks down further into: 45 first-party and 63 third-party games

There’s no “secret” to developing for the Wii, nor is the audience more casual, less savvy or even, dare I sound like many in the enthusiast press today, stupider, less knowledgeable or less engaged than an owner of another system. Better still for all the developers out there who lost their jobs in 2009—and there were hundreds if not thousands—if you develop quality software for a system with more than 60 million owners, you will join this exclusive club. Why not start up a smaller studio and try your hand at some truly innovative software on a system that’s cheap enough to take some risk?

It seemed like only yesterday I, at least, was opining in the Infendo HQ how 2010 was actually going to be a bigger success for Nintendo than 2009. With this fresh information, I’ll modify it a bit: 2010 will also be bigger than 2008.

Global Sales Mark 17% Growth Over Previous Year

Despite nearly unprecedented strength of the yen against major foreign currencies, Nintendo Co., Ltd. on Thursday (Japan time) reported 9-month (April to December 2008) global sales of 1,536 billion yen, an increase of nearly 17% over the same period in 2007, along with 501 billion yen of operating profits, up 27% from a year ago. This marks the fourth consecutive year that Nintendo Co., Ltd. has exceeded the previous results for the same nine month period. At the same time, recurring and net profits for the same nine month periods each declined about 18% due to 174 billion yen of foreign currency reevaluation losses from assets held in currencies other than Japanese yen (such as bank deposits without forward exchange contracts).

(more…)

“New Play Control!” promises to add motion controls, wide screen support, and a maybe some new content to classic Gamecube titles.  It’s been done before, with Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition, the idea definitely has merit – but western audiences will have to wait unil March to see if these “Wii-Makes” are worth revisiting.  Still, looking at Japanese sales can give us some idea how the New Play Control series will fare stateside.

Last week Mario Power Tennis for Wii topped Japanese sales charts, boasting a sales total of 56,509 according to Media Create.  This beat out first week sales of New Play Control! Pikmin by about 12,000 units.  What makes Mario Power Tennis more successful than Pikmin, or any of the other games released this week? It could be multiple things – for one, the Mario franchise is highly recognizable – sales could be driven by the inclusion of Nintendo’s popular characters.  In contrast, Pikmin is a little more obscure, and lacks the brand recognition to grab those extra sales.  And don’t discount the play style – Sold separately in Japan, Wii Sports still makes the top 20 on sales charts – motion controlled tennis could be a driving force in and of itself.

New Play Control! Mario Power Tennis and New Play Control! Pikmin hit American shores on March 09, 2009.

Which of these titles do you think will do better in the US market? Let us know in the comments!