DS hardware and software sales dip in fiscal 2010
Portable giant breaks records in the Americas but experiences "shortfall" in Europe
The Nintendo DS saw drops in both hardware and software sales over the last 12 months, as Nintendo's latest financial results reveal detailed statistics for the full financial year.
Despite a disappointing first half of the financial year the company pointed towards the DS's record breaking sales in the Americas of 12.29 million units.
Worldwide sales of the DSi stood at 27.11 million for the year, down from 31.18 million over the previous 12 months. Nintendo attributed this downturn to a "shortfall" in Europe, with "rest of the world" sales dropping from 15.11 million units to 10.81 million.
Sales in Japan were static at 4.01 million, while the Americas saw a small increase from 12.07 million to 12.29 million.
The launch of the DSi XL in November in Japan and March in the West had relatively little impact on overall sales, accounting for just 2.08 million of the overall total (1.04 million in Japan, 0.42 million in the Americas and 0.62 million in the rest of the world).
Lifetime-to-date sales for the portable family as a whole have now reached 128.89 million though, surpassing the Game Boy series and closing in on the PlayStation 2's record 140 million lifetime total.
The best-selling software for the DS was Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver on 8.4 million units and The Legend of Zelda: Spirits Tracks on 2.61 million. The Japanese-only Tomodachi Collection (aka Friend Collection) also sold 3.2 million units.
The total number of million-selling titles for the DS, including third party titles, has now increased from 91 to 114 over the course of the year.
However, overall software sales fell compared to the previous year, down from 197.31 million to 151.59 million. Both Japan and America saw relatively small drops, but European software sales plummeted from 83.62 million to 47.43 million.