3DS sells 795,000 in November, tops DS's first year total

The industry-tracking NPD Group this afternoon released its US retail sales figures for November, trumpeting the successes of best-selling game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and best-selling system Xbox 360. Since the NPD Group wasn't boasting of Nintendo's efforts, the 3DS maker took that task upon itself.

According to Nintendo, the month of November saw the 3DS surpass the first-year sales total of the original DS, topping 2.37 million systems sold. Last month saw the glasses-free 3D handheld sell 795,000 systems in the US, assisted by the mid-month launch of Super Mario 3D Land, which has now topped 625,000 copies sold.

Nintendo's newest system wasn't its best-selling, however. The Wii sold 860,000 systems during November, punctuated by its strongest Black Friday ever, with 520,000 systems sold in a single day. The total US installed base of the Wii has now reached 37.7 million consoles. On the software front, the Wii saw the release of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which Nintendo said had the largest launch day in franchise history and sold over 600,000 copies in its debut week.