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Wii and DS thrash competition in US

Nintendo's pair sold 7m in December.

Robert Purchese avatar
News by Robert Purchese Associate Editor
Updated on
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Nintendo's Wii and DS have broken single-month US sales records for their performance throughout December.

The latest NPD figures showed Wii sold 3.81m units during the festive month, while DS Lite/DSi combined to shift 3.31m units - the second biggest result ever.

"Wii, Nintendo DS Lite and Nintendo DSi combined to sell more than 7 million units in the month of December alone. Clearly there is overwhelming consumer demand for fun games, motion controls and value," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's second in command.

"This remarkable hardware sales surge presents a tremendous software opportunity for Nintendo and its third-party partners as we head into 2010."

Sony talked about December 2009 being a "turning point" for PS3, which improved 87 per cent on December 2008 and sold 1.36m units.

"It's no surprise we've seen PS3 units sold every month nearly double since October. We knew 2009 would be a turning point for the platform due to the new price and a content line up that is fuelling unprecedented consumer and industry interest with games like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves," said Sony America's Patrick Seybold.

Even Microsoft, whose Xbox 360 finished a close third with 1.31m sales, had something to shout about: in this case 39m Xbox 360 sales worldwide since launch.

The Xbox 360 platform holder offered no quote but emphasised strong software sales and an impressive game-to-console tie ratio of 8.8. Microsoft was keen to shout about the year ahead, too, name-dropping Mass Effect 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Alan Wake, Crackdown 2, Fable 3 and "what will be the biggest game of the year", Halo: Reach. Not to mention Natal, of course.

Further down, Sony's PSP sold 654,000 units during December and finished ahead of veteran sibling PS2 with 333,200 sales.

US software sales for December can be found elsewhere on Eurogamer.

US hardware for December 2009:

  1. Wii - 3.81 million
  2. Nintendo DS - 3.31 million
  3. PlayStation 3 - 1.36 million
  4. Xbox 360 - 1.31 million
  5. PSP - 654,700
  6. PlayStation 2 - 333,200

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