Nintendo’s hardware isn’t selling as well as it used to, but it’s nowhere near dead.
The publisher has sold 9.54 million Wii Us and 52.06 million 3DSes to date. For the home console, Nintendo sold 3.38 million during its fiscal 2015, which ended March 31. That was actually up significantly from 2.72 million in fiscal 2014. And the company can probably credit successful games like Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Mario Kart 8 for that increase.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1722845,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"D"}']As for the handheld, Nintendo sold 8.73 million 3DSes (which includes all the variations of that hardware) during its last fiscal year. That’s actually down year-over-year from 12.24 million in fiscal 2014. The company said that the New 3DS and New 3DS XL sold well, but the earlier iterations were actually selling a lot worse than it was expecting before that latest refinement hit store shelves.
Let’s break down the 3DS sales a little bit more. Here’s a look at how each iteration has performed life-to-date:
- 3DS XL: 19.07 million
- 2DS: 3.76 million
- New 3DS: 820,000
- New 3DS XL: 2.45 million
It’s important to keep in mind that the New 3DS isn’t actually available in North America, where Nintendo only released the New 3DS XL. But the company’s numbers might actually reveal why that is the case.
Just look at Japan, which got both the New 3DS and New 3DS XL. In that country, the larger system is outselling the smaller portable by more than a two-to-one margin. Nintendo has sold more than 1.34 million New 3DS XLs in Japan compared to 590,000 New 3DSes in that market.
That sales discrepancy comes despite the smaller New 3DS’s customization options, which let gamers swap out the system’s face plate. While that is popular in the markets where the system is on sale, it seems that the larger screen is still more important to gamers.