3DS sales top 1 million in Japan - Report

The DS is one of the best-selling handheld devices that the game industry has to offer, but Nintendo has struggled to match that device's performance with its follow-up, the 3DS. As part of a recent earnings report, Nintendo said that the 3DS fell short of its sales expectations through March by some 400,000 units, prompting the company to say that it would be stepping up its marketing efforts.

Still, Nintendo is making progress getting the device into gamers' hands. According to Mainichi (relayed by Andria Sang), industry-tracking Enterbrain revealed that the 3DS has now sold more than 1 million units in Japan, some 13 weeks after its late February launch. The Japan-focused game-industry site notes that the original DS took four weeks to hit the platinum marker, while the DS Lite and DSi each took eight weeks.

By Nintendo's most recent accounting in April, the company said that it had sold more than 3.61 million 3DS units worldwide. However, Nintendo has yet to release any of its iconic franchises for the platform. That will change on June 19 with the release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. Nintendo also has 3DS installments in its Mario Kart, Star Fox, Super Mario, and Kid Icarus franchises due by year's end.