Nintendo Celebrates 7 Million European DS Sales

Officials from Nintendo of Europe have announced that the Nintendo DS has now sold a total of 7 million units across Europe since its launch in March 2005. The worldwide total for the console was put at 26.82 million in October, with the Japanese userbase currently estimated at 11.5+ million and the Americas at 7.5+ million. In addition to the new hardware total, Nintendo also revealed that a total of six different Nintendo DS games had now sold more than one million units in Europe alone. These were Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? (aka Brain Age), Animal Crossing: Wild World, New Super Mario Bros., Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart DS, which has sold over 1.5 million copies. The best selling game on the format, with more copies sold in Europe than anywhere else in the world, is Nintendogs, with over 4 million units sold over the four different SKUs (each of which is functionally identical in terms of gameplay). Since the release of Brain Training, a key title in multiple markets worldwide, Nintendo claims that sales to non-traditional markets have increased dramatically, with 44 percent of European Nintendo DS owners being female. Laurent Fischer, European marketing director for Nintendo commented, “We are delighted by the success of the Nintendo DS and DS Lite and especially pleased to see that we have exceeded the one million mark with games that appeal to both non-gamers and traditional gamers. Nintendo is proud of its role in expanding the gaming market and we hope to continue this success with the launch of Wii in Europe in December.”