DS Reaches 20 Million Units Sold In Japan

According to data translated by consumer site IGN, the Nintendo DS has crossed the milestone of twenty million units sold in Japan, just shy of three years after the system originally appeared on the market. The DS' current incarnation, the DS Lite, was released in February 2006. The data, which comes from sales tracker Media Create, says sales since release of both the DS and DS Lite account for 50.26 percent of total sales in the Japanese hardware market. The 83.95 million units of DS software sold in Japan accounts for 40 percent of the total software market. Sales of the Nintendo DS have continued to top Japan's hardware charts for the past several weeks, eclipsing console sales by as much as two to three times. Although in the U.S. sales of the DS have not quite eclipsed sales of the Xbox 360 and Wii consoles, the gap is fairly narrow, with September sales showing the handheld only just behind the Wii's 501,000 units at 495,800 sold for the month.