The Nintendo 3DS has become the fastest-selling Nintendo handheld system in the United States, although specific sales numbers for the system will not be released to the public until the NPD numbers on April 14th.
To quote Nintendo,
“US day-one sales numbers for Nintendo 3DS were the highest of any Nintendo handheld system in our history.”
This means that the 3DS outsold the following: Game & Watch systems (1980), The original Game Boy (1989), Virtual Boy (1995), Game Boy Pocket (1996), (Game Boy Color (1998), Game Boy Advance (2001), Game Boy Advance SP (2003), Game Boy Micro (2005), Nintendo DS (2004), DS Lite (2006), DSi (2009; 2008 in Japan) and DSi XL (2010; 2009 in Japan). PHEW! Quite the timeline Nintendo has there eh.
The 3DS was released in 2011 on March 27th in North America, in Europe on March 25th, in Australia on March 31st and in Japan on February 26th.
The actual sales numbers for the Nintendo 3DS are virtually guarenteed to be record-setting, as the 3DS has roughly twice the pre-orders of the Nintendo Wii prelaunch according to Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian. In Japan the system sold over 375,000 units in 48 hours and the European numbers are just as staggering with over 303,000 known to have been sold.
Nintendo also denied that there were widespread experiences of the 3DS crashing, playing down reports by releasing a statement that read: “The number of calls and emails received by our customer support center is well below the rate experienced during past hardware launches, and there are no widespread issues.” It directed anyone experiencing problems to visit the Nintendo Support website or call their help line at 1-800-255-3700.
Via GameSpot