Nintendo said Tuesday that it had sold over 3 million Wii consoles in the U.S. in December 2009, which would be a new monthly record for home game consoles.
After a year of month-on-month sales declines, December's number's would represent a big jump for Wii, which only sold 2.15 million units in December 2008 due to supply constraints.
The official numbers will be released by the NPD Group on January 14. Tuesday's announcement was based on Nintendo's internal estimates.
The current one-month sales record is held by PlayStation 2, which moved 2.7 million units during December 2002.
That record was for all game machines until the portable Nintendo DS beat it in December 2008. Nintendo said that DS also had a fantastic 2009, estimating that it sold more units this year than any console ever.
It's clear that Nintendo can credit the launch of New Super Mario Bros. for much of this renewed Wii demand, as it said that sales of the four-player action game are now "approaching" 4 million units.
It still seems highly unlikely that, as per Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime's prediction, Mario will outsell the Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2 over the course of the holiday sales season (through the end of January).
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