Great news everyone!  The 3DS is the best selling platform for the 4th straight month.  Like I said last month, I think we’ll continue to see this trend for the next couple months and throughout the Holidays.  The 3DS is on a roll with a lot of great games and Pokemon X/Y debuts next month.  With Pokemon X/Y and Monster Hunter 4 launching in Japan, the 3DS is going to be a top-selling system for a long time.

[expand title=”Click for full press release”]

Nintendo 3DS is Best-Selling Video Game Platform for Fourth Straight Month

Fueled by a strong start for Mario & Luigi™: Dream Team and the continued strength of games such as Animal Crossing™: New Leaf and Luigi’s Mansion™: Dark Moon, Nintendo 3DS™ finished August as the best-selling video game system in the U.S. for the fourth consecutive month. More than 6.47 million units of Nintendo 3DS software have been sold so far in 2013, an increase of nearly 30 percent over the same time frame last year.

Other highlights for August include:

  • Mario & Luigi: Dream Team for Nintendo 3DS launched on Aug. 11 and sold nearly 190,000 combined physical and digital units.
  • Pikmin™ 3 for Wii U™ launched on Aug. 4 and sold more than 115,000 combined physical and digital units.
  • New Super Luigi U™ for Wii U launched in stores on Aug. 25, after two months as a digital-only download, and has now sold nearly 120,000 combined units.
  • So far in 2013, nine Nintendo 3DS games have sold at least 250,000 combined physical and digital units. These include:
Title Launch Date 2013 sales Lifetime sales
Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon 3/24/13 863,000 units
Animal Crossing: New Leaf 6/9/13 739,000 units
New Super Mario Bros.™ 2 8/19/12 406,000 units 1.85 million units
Fire Emblem Awakening 2/4/13 390,000 units
Mario Kart™ 7 12/4/11 352,000 units 2.84 million units
Pokémon™ Mystery Dungeon:Gates to Infinity 3/24/13 298,000 units
Donkey Kong Country™ Returns 3D 5/24/13 268,000 units
Super Mario 3D Land™ 11/13/11 265,000 units 2.86 million units
LEGO® City Undercover: The Chase Begins 4/21/13 264,000 units

Nintendo 3DS fans will have a lot to play this fall and through the rest of 2013, including Pokémon™ X and Pokémon™ Y (Oct. 12), The Legend of Zelda™: A Link Between Worlds (Nov. 22) and Mario Party™: Island Tour (Nov. 22). On Oct. 12, Nintendo launches Nintendo 2DS™, an entry-level portable video game system that plays all Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo DS games in 2D at a suggested retail price of $129.99.

The great lineup of Wii U games continues this month with The Wonderful 101™ (Sept. 15) and The Legend of Zelda™: The Wind Waker HD (Digital: Sept. 20, Physical: Oct. 4), and into the fall and holiday season with Wii Party™ U (Oct. 25), Super Mario™ 3D World (Nov. 22), Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Dec. 6) and Wii Fit™ U (Holiday). On Sept. 20, Nintendo is launching a limited-edition Wii U bundle featuring The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD at the new Wii U Deluxe suggested retail price of $299.99.

*Data regarding physical sales of games in August are from the NPD Group. Data regarding digital downloads of games and combined physical/digital life-to-date numbers are from Nintendo’s internal sales figures. All numbers are specific to the United States only.

[/expand]