Nintendo posts biggest sales week in US

Thanksgiving proves appropriate for Nintendo to make a sales breakthrough.

The US division of the Japanese console gaming firm, Nintendo of America, reported 653,000 handheld Nintendo DS and 350,000 Wii units sold in the US Thanksgiving Week, which they consider as their biggest sales surge in history, press statements from the company said.

Nintendo DS broke the previous Thanksgiving record of its precursor GameBoy Advance, which posted 600,000 units sold in the same period in 2005. Meanwhile, sales of the Wii for the week (Nov. 18-24) was considered the highest since the seven days after the console’s 2006 launch.

According to Nintendo officials, over 5 million Wii units in total were sold in its phenomenal first year, outpacing the video game giants PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.