Nintendo seems to have boosted the sales of its Nintendo 3DS portable game console nicely after a rather shaky start. The company announced today that it has now sold over 4 million units of the Nintendo 3DS console in the US in 2011. The console launched in the US back in March.
After a strong first week, sales of the console plunged during the spring and summer months, not just in the US but worldwide. Nintendo made the decision to cut the price of the 3DS down from $249.99 to just $169.99 starting in mid-August. That seemed to do the trick and sales have been on an upward swing ever since.
In addition to the stronger sales of the console itself, two 3DS exclusive games (Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7) have now each exceeded the one million unit sales mark in the US. Both games were released in the last few weeks of 2011.
Nintendo also announced that it sold over 4.5 million Wii consoles in the US in 2011 along with over 3.4 million units of its various Nintendo DS portable consoles. Of course, the world is waiting for more information on the Wii U, the next major console hardware device from Nintendo. It"s still scheduled to be released sometime in 2012.