REDMOND, Wash. – Nintendo Co. said Tuesday that it has sold about 10 million of its Nintendo DS handheld game systems worldwide, including about 4 million in North America and more than 5 million in Japan.
Perrin Kaplan, vice president for marketing at Nintendo's U.S. headquarters in Redmond, said the company sold about 3 million of the handheld gaming gadgets to North American consumers in 2005.
That's on top of 1.2 million sold to North American consumers in 2004, following the system's late November launch.
Rival Sony Corp. said it has sold 3.2 million of its handheld game system, the PlayStation Portable, in North America between its March launch and mid-December. The company did not yet have sales figures through the end of 2005.
Nintendo also said Tuesday that it sold 4.6 million of its other popular handheld gaming system, the Game Boy Advance, to North American consumers in 2005. That's a drop from 7.58 million in 2004.
Kaplan said about 550,000 people worldwide have used Nintendo DS's Wi-Fi system for playing games online since that offering launched seven weeks ago.
The online game play option is free for anyone who has wireless Internet access. Users with a regular broadband connection can buy an adapter for about $35.
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