It’s common knowledge that the Nintendo Wii is the most commercially successful home console of this hardware generation, and that more Wiis have been sold than lap dances in Vegas. Well, the NPD Group today has a news flash that will open many people’s eyes to Nintendo’s real ace in the hole: the DS sold more hardware units in April than any other console — handheld or not — in the history of gaming.
Iwata-san is now officially laughing all the way to the bank.
According to the NNPD Group, the new Nintendo DSi and Nintendo DS systems set a new all-time U.S. record for April hardware sales for any video game platform. All told, Nintendo sold more than 827,000 Nintendo DSi systems in April, plus 215,000 Nintendo DS Lites, for a combined total of more than 1.04 million units.
In the U.S. alone, Nintendo has now sold more than 30 million DS units.
Also in April, the ND Group confirmed that the Nintendo Wii remained the top-selling home console in the United States, selling more than 340,000 units in April, more than the PS3 and Xbox 360 combined. Nintendo has now sold nearly 20 million Wiis in the United States since the console’s launch in November 2006.
