Nintendo Enjoys Bumper North American Hardware Sales In November

Amazing figures. Makes me think back at the sales figures of the Gamecube and smile.

This is definitely good news!

Wow that's quite a lot of units overall

Wii U sold less than Wii during its launch, even though Wii was supply-constrained and Wii U had better supply. 3DS sales went down compared to last year, while DS sales actually went UP compared to last year! It's obvious that consumers valued the Wii and DS and the newer consoles aren't delivering as good a value to them.

@mahe, All those sales figures show is that on Black Friday you could get a DSi XL WITH A GAME FOR $60.00 and a 3DS was $160.00 without a game same with the Wii you could get one for next to nothing cause its an older on its way out system ,in the case of Wii U IT WAS SOLD OUT LIMITED STOCK. That's all those sales figures show me

Not too shabby at all when you consider the cobra clutch on the economy and over-the-top rising of rates and mobile phone addiction... Looks like the masses are embracing real gaming again

Eat that, Michael "who's totally irrelevant now" Pachter!

@Mahe It's obvious that people buy more things when they're cheap.

Numbers might be shrinking a bit, but I feel like the only people left playing games soon will be people who generally will avoid shovelware. So even if this generation across all platforms sell less, we will hopefully see less, "Imagine Babies" and "Ninjabread Men" on the market.

With Black Friday discounts, you never know exactly how good are the consoles going, so lets just wait a little more before jumping into conclusions.

...bumper?

Nintendo makes a banker a very happy man.

Seems like Nintendo's doing well!

This good news. It sounds like Wii U is off to a good start in the United States.

Seems like Nintendo is now catching up with demand in the US a bit with even some Pro systems on the shelves from time to time, it will be much more telling to see how it sold by the end of the year.

I never expected the Wii U to outsell the Wii. The Wii had a very tangible and incredible new idea with motion controls that got a much wider audience interested than just gamers. I'll always remember the conversations I had with the people I stood in line with on launch day as they were excited about golf and tennis, were older, and this wasn't just for their kids.

For the Wii U, the line I was in had a grandmother who was buying it and knew nothing about it really, and a couple of very informed 20-30 somethings. Much more like a traditional console than the Wii.

To me, if the Wii U is going to take off in the US, it's after families have gotten together a couple times and had a riot with Nintendo Land. A distinct possibility. The moment a receptive and active group get into that, it's Wii Sports all over again. You just can't sell that in commercials as well as you can show motion controls.

Here's the BIG upside. The promise of Wii motion controls was scarcely delivered beyond Wii Sports. Motion Plus made it much closer, but it came way to late to keep the momentum going, and there were TWO games in my mind that actually fully utilized Motion Controls and were "core": Metroid Prime 3 Corruption and Skyward Sword.

I think the Wii U has a MUCH better chance on delivering it's promises of asymmetric play and the benefits of the second screen. In addition, I think Nintendo's brand of motion controls is JUST coming into its own. It could see a momentum that continues for awhile.

I see third party momentum coming from Rayman Legends and Aliens: Colonial Marines (nicely covering all audiences) and even LEGO City which is shaping up nicely. All are using the GamePad pretty deeply.

So... I guess I'm analyzing now.

Numbers in February will be more telling and, again, when a major Nintendo franchise like Zelda or Metroid or Mario (3D) hit, because those can lead to many, many console sales.

I'm surprised people are still buying the cheaper/older systems over the newest thing, at least when it comes to DS. I didn't even know they still sold older DS models at the store anymore.

If you just delay gratification about two years everything is just as good as it was and half the cost or less. That's what people tell me anyway.

@Mahe Definitely. Same Thing With Competitors.

Wii U costs $100 more than Wii did at launch, with the economy doing crappy on top of that, so selling even selling as much as it did is good. DS sale stats are just crazy. Everyone I know has had a freaking DS, myself having 7. 1 original, 3 lites(one white, one black, one Pokemon Limited), 1 DSi, 2 3DS(1 regular). I don't have anymore of them except the 3DS XL, but 4 of them have owners that I sold them to, w/ me having just one now. 2 of them I traded back to Best Buy using the warranty to get a better one, including the phat to lite trade, and my black DS lite had a broken R button to get the Pokemon DS lite. My brother has had 3, my sister has had 2, my cousins have had at least 1... I'm the only one with a 3DS XL though.

Go NINTENDO!

I'm sure it's really annoying to have people correct every single article about sales numbers, but the DS is about to surpass 153 million, not 53 million. (That will make it the best-selling video game console of all time, by the way.)

These numbers are from Nintendo themselves, but didn't the Wii sell 600,000 units in NA in its launch week? According to Nintendo in 2006 it did.

This doesn't add up no matter how you splice it. These sales figures for Wii U are supposed to be the sales for the whole month since launch in North America. How did the 600,000 Wii's sold in North America at launch WEEK become 475,000 Wii's sold in North America at launch MONTH? 600,000 (8 days) > 475,000 (12 days) but this comparison makes it seem like Wii U is doing better than it is. Sure, you can argue that those 475,000 units sold at launch month were only in the United States and the rest were Canada, but then why is this a North American comparison?

EDIT: Okay, so supposedly this data is seven days worth of sales for Wii U. Maybe the Wii sold 475,000 units in the first seven days and for some reason the eighth day spiked it to 600,000? That would explain it.