The new benchmarks were established not only for software sales, but hardware sales as well. In fact, the total hardware and software sales in 2014 saw an increase of more than 29% and more than 75%, respectively, as opposed to sales figures in the previous year (2013), and a huge chunk of this could be attributed to a strong December.
The Nintendo 3DS was also no pushover in December itself, which marked its largest month to date for first-party software sales. The main reason behind this? Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, which has already passed the 2 million mark for combined physical and digital units sold – taking a wee bit more than three months to achieve such a figure. Not only that, the presence of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Pokémon Alpha Sapphire also helped inflate Nintendo’s figures, as both titles combined to sell more than 2.6 million physical and digital units in their first six weeks alone.
Scott Moffitt, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing, had this to say, “Wii U had its strongest year yet thanks to the highly anticipated software lineup and the introduction of the amiibo platform. Fans can anticipate another strong year for 2015, especially with more highly anticipated games like Splatoon and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D, as well as New Nintendo 3DS XL, arriving in the first half of 2015.”