Nintendo Europe Reveals UK Hardware Figures

David Yarnton, head of Nintendo UK, has released more detailed information on hardware sales of the Wii and Nintendo DS in Europe and the UK, claiming that targets for Wii sales have already been exceeded by “unprecedented demand”. Although weekly and monthly sales data is regularly available for Japan and the U.S., respectively, hardware sales data for any format has always been difficult to obtain for Europe. The only consistent source has been console manufacturer’s financial reports, from which these latest figures appear to be derived. As previously reported, the global installed userbase for the Nintendo DS is put at 40.29 million units, although Yarton has clarified that this includes 11 million units in Europe – of which 3.1 million have been sold in the UK. By comparison, 16.02 million units have been sold overall in Japan since launch, and 11.74 million in the Americas. For the Wii, the global userbase was put at 5.84 million at the end of March, with 1.3 million units sold in Europe – of which the UK accounts for 438,000 units. 2.00 million units have been sold in Japan and 2.37 million in the Americas. In an interview with UK trade paper MCV, Yarton commented: “We’ve sold close to 438,000 Wiis in the UK in five months. It’s really hard to have targets – we have seen unprecedented demand."