It was, in fact, pretty good for the industry in general. Nintendo though, they had a particularly merry one.
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Nintendo Finishes 2009 with Multiple Sales Records
Wii
Has the Best Month in Video Game History, Nintendo DS Has the Best
Calendar Year of All Time
A holiday shopping frenzy helped both of Nintendo’s video game systems
make history: Nintendo’s Wii™ home system sold more than 3.8
million units in December, a new all-time single-month U.S. sales
record. The Nintendo DS™ Lite and Nintendo DSi™
hand-held systems combined to sell more than 3.3 million, the second
biggest month in U.S. history.
Those strong December numbers helped propel the Nintendo DS franchise to
more than 11.2 million sold in 2009, a new U.S. calendar-year sales
record for any video game system – ever. The Wii console finished 2009
with 9.6 million sold. Of all the Wii consoles ever sold in the United
States since its November 2006 launch, nearly one-fifth (18.7 percent)
were sold during November and December 2009.
“Wii, Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi combined to sell more than 7
million units in the month of December alone,” said 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 U.S. sales for Wii have now surpassed 27.2 million units. No
other home console has ever sold so many so quickly. Lifetime U.S. sales
for the Nintendo DS franchise have topped 38.8 million units, surpassing
lifetime sales of the Game Boy™ Advance franchise.
As always, great software drives hardware sales. In December alone,
consumers placed six Nintendo games in the top 10 best-sellers of the
month. These include New Super Mario Bros.™ Wii
at No. 1 with more than 2.8 million sold, Wii Sports Resort™
at No. 2 with more than 1.7 million 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 all of 2009, Nintendo finished with seven of the top 10 best-selling
games of the year. These include 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 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.
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Very merry indeed.