AfterDawn: News

Nintendo celebrates Christmas success in UK

Nintendo was very fortunate over the holiday period in the UK, managing to sell over 200,000 Wii consoles and over half a million DS handheld consoles. The company cited Chart-Track figures in its announcement. Across Europe, unlucky gamers looking for a Wii found mostly empty shelves as 700,000 units were quickly purchased.

After its launch in Europe on December 8th, the Wii console became the fastest selling gaming console ever during its opening weekend. As for the games, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess topped the chart for the console with over 500,000 copies being sold, meaning that 70% of new Wii owners bought the title.



Also with the DS selling more than 500,000 units over the month of December in the UK, Nintendo insisted that it was not only the biggest selling console over the Christmas period, but in the entire of the year 2006. The DS sold 1.7 million units across Europe in December.

"We have enjoyed one of the most successful Christmas holidays ever, with both Nintendo DS and Wii selling at staggering rates," said Nintendo Europe marketing director Laurent Fischer. "We are facing such high demand for both platforms that unfortunately we are facing stock shortages. However we are doing everything possible to combat this by attempting to deliver both consoles and games to retailers on a daily basis."

Source:
GamesIndustry.biz

Written by: James Delahunty @ 16 Jan 2007 18:08

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• 8 comments

• axemurder

  Im glad to see nintendo doing good.

  16.1.2007 22:28 #1

• chubbyInc

  Guess a lot of people bought the DS once they couldn't get the Wii. Either way Nintendo is doing something right .

  17.1.2007 05:42 #2

• geeoh

  What Nintendo is doing right is that they are listening what gamers want, and not telling them what they want, unlike Sony!

  17.1.2007 06:54 #3

• solarf

  agreed. And thats why Nintendo is doing so good they listen. Great job Nintendo!!!

  17.1.2007 07:49 #4

• johnblaze

  Good for Nintendo, makes me think of the grandpa showing the kids how it's done.

  17.1.2007 07:56 #5

• Unfocused

  It also helps that when the clueless parents go to buy their kids a PS3 and see the $600 price tag, they naturally buy the lower priced Wii.
  
  On another note, it is about time that Nintendo gets the one up on Sony. It was Sony who was supposed to build the CD ROM drive for the SuperNES many moons ago. That plan fell through and thus was the birth of the original Playstation.
  

  18.1.2007 15:26 #6

• gozilla

  @Unfocused
  
  Sony DID build the CD-ROM unit for the SNES, it was Nintendo that killed the project.
  
  but it is good to see Nintendo is doing well, hopefully it will continue.

  18.1.2007 20:24 #7

• borhan9

  I am glad and happy to see that Nintendo is doing better than what they expected and also better than what the other consoles thought :) Goes to show you that all the flashy features are not always what gamers want :)

  19.1.2007 19:43 #8