Nintendo has somewhat targeted the more casual gamers with its consoles, the DS and Wii. And it seems that the trend of casual gaming still hasn’t taken a dip. Nintendo has announced that its Wii had the Best Month in Video Game History in December last year, and the DS had the Best Calendar Year of all Time last year.
The Nintendo Wii sold more than 3.8 million units in December, which is a new all-time single-month US sales record. Meanwhile the DS Lite and the DSi combined sold over 3.3 million, in what the company says is “the second biggest month in US history”. These December sales figures thrust the DS franchise to more than 11.2 million sold in 2009, which is in itself, a new US calendar-year sales record for any video game system ever. US Wii sales for the year 2009 finished at 9.6 million.
“Wii, Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi combined to sell more than 7 million units in the month of December alone,” stated Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Clearly there is overwhelming consumer demand for fun games, motion controls and value. This remarkable hardware sales surge presents a tremendous software opportunity for Nintendo and its third-party partners as we head into 2010.”
Lifetime US sales of the Wii have surpassed 27.2 million units with almost one-fifth (18.7 percent) sold in November and December 2009 alone. Lifetime US sales of the Nintendo DS franchise have surpassed 38.8 million.
In December last year, six Nintendo games found themselves among the best-sellers of the month. These include New Super Mario Bros. Wii at No. 1 with over 2.8 million copies sold, Wii Sports Resort at No. 2 with over 1.7 million copies sold, Wii Fit Plus with the Wii Balance Board accessory at No. 3 with more than 1.7 million sold, Wii Play at No. 6 with more than 1.0 million sold, Mario Kart Wii at No. 7 with more than 936,000 sold and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story for Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi at No. 10 with more than 656,000 sold.
For the entire year 2009, seven Nintendo games finished in the top 10 best-selling games of the year. These are New Super Mario Bros. Wii at No. 2 with more than 4.2 million sold, Wii Sports Resort at No. 3 with more than 4.2 million sold, Wii Fit at No. 4 with more than 3.5 million sold, Mario Kart Wii at No. 5 with nearly 3.1 million sold, Wii Play at No. 6 with more than 3.1 million copies sold, Wii Fit Plus at No. 8 with more than 2.4 million sold and Pokémon Platinum Version at No. 10 with more than 2.0 million sold.
All these figures from Nintendo are according to the NPD Group, a company which tracks US video game sales.