After dominating the Japanese software sales charts for years now, data from Famitsu publisher Enterbrain shows that the Nintendo DS has achieved another important landmark with more than 10 million consoles sold in its homeland.
According to data translated by MCV, the Nintendo DS passed the milestone in April. The console, which has been supply constrained ever since the launch of the Nintendo DS Lite model in March 2006, took only 61 weeks to reach ten million units. By comparison, the PlayStation 2 took 131 weeks to reach the same figure.
Data provided in Nintendo’s most recent financial report shows the console has sold over 40 million units worldwide in just over three years. In the last financial year alone 23 million units were sold worldwide and 123 million units of software.
The Nintendo DS was easily the best selling console during April, according to the Famitsu data, with a total of 705,055 units sold. The next best selling console was the Wii at 287,722 units, followed by the PSP at 158, 291.
The PlayStation 3 sold just 71,247 units in April, compared to 67,673 on the PlayStation 2 and 17,094 for the Xbox 360. The Game Boy Advance family of consoles sold 7,375 units during the month and the GameCube 258.
The best selling software of the traditionally quiet sales month, according to Famitsu, was Gyakuten Saiban 4 (aka Ace Attorney 4) on the Nintendo DS with a total of 338,000 unit sales.
Further hardware sales data for the reminder of the Japanese Golden Week series of holidays is expected tomorrow from Media Create, although specific figures from the two sources never tally exactly.
