In what can only be described as a remarkable turnaround, the 3DS has gone from struggling badly enough that it necessitated a steep price drop to breaking a record by reaching 5 million units sold in Japan faster than any other platform. It took 52 weeks to reach that milestone, compared with 56 weeks for the original DS and 58 weeks for the Game Boy Advance before it.
It wasn’t all that long ago that much of the talk about 3DS centered about how it was a doomed platform, one destined for failure because it was designed for a market that no longer exists in the size it once did. There were legitimate concerns to be voiced, as platforms like the iPhone and iPad have arguably taken a bite out of the handheld gaming market, but pronouncements of the platform’s death before it could even reach the holiday shopping season or see the release of its first big games (Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, and Monster Hunter 3G) were clearly premature. Reaching 5 million units sold in Japan is no guarantee the system will continue to sell this well moving forward; it is, however, an encouraging sign for Nintendo, Sony, and third-party developers to see there is demand for portable gaming systems provided the price is right and desirable software is available.
