Nintendo sees huge holiday sales bump

Nintendo sold 1.5 million Wii and DS consoles in the US last week, with Black Friday deals reigniting consumers' dwindling enthusiasm for its hardware.

600,000 Wiis were sold between 21st November and 27th November, and 900,000 DSes.

"US shoppers bought about 9,000 Nintendo hardware systems nonstop for every hour of every day during the week of Black Friday," said Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime.

"For the past several years, consumers have decided that Nintendo defined both top value and all-inclusive entertainment, and that sentiment continues again at the start of this shopping season."

Neither Sony of Microsoft have published their figures yet, but it's an impressive showing for Nintendo nonetheless.

As a comparison, the Xbox 360 sold 350,000 units during the whole of October in the US, making it the best selling home console of the month.

The figures also serve to back-up Fils-Aime's recent comments about how important the holiday season is for Nintendo.

Speaking at the BMO Capital Markets Annual Digital Entertainment Conference earlier this month, Fils-Aime said, "The holidays are more important to Nintendo than to other manufacturers. We have a distinct edge when it comes to gift-giving."

50 per cent of all Nintendo's hardware sales last year came in November and December. "For everyone else that number was just over 40 percent," Fils-Aime claimed.

Black Friday, the day after the annual Thanksgiving holiday, is one of the biggest shopping days of the year in the US, with consoles and software seeing huge reductions.

Nintendo's offers this year were spearheaded by new red Wii and DS console bundles, with Donkey Kong Country Returns helping to fuel sales.

Last year, Nintendo sold 550,000 Wiis and a million DSes over the same period.