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Nintendo sells over 50 million DS units, 3DS sales fall flat in comparison

Nintendo's twin-screen wonder has seen almost as many reinventions as Lady Gaga, so it may not come as a huge shock to hear that the DS (in all its guises) has now sold over 50 million units in the US. The home entertainment maestros are still chasing similar success for its three-dimensional sibling, the 3DS, however. Nintendo has managed to sell almost half a million three dee units units after its weighty price cut, but there's now some very potent competitors seeking their own slice of the (portable) gaming pie. Good luck, Nintendo, you're probably going to need it.

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NINTENDO DS CROSSES 50 MILLION UNITS SOLD

Oct. 13, 2011

The best-selling video game system in U.S. history reached another milestone in September: Lifetime sales of the Nintendo DS™ family of systems have surpassed 50 million units, according to the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States.

"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," said Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "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 lineup of games, including Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7."

Other Nintendo milestones reached in September include:

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 Aug. 12.

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.

Nintendo sold more than 647,000 total hardware units in September, including 240,000 Wii™ systems and more than 145,000 units of the Nintendo DS family.

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.