Nintendo’s strategy of using mobile games to attract users to its ecosystem appears to have borne fruit- as a result of the frenzy generated by Pokemon GO, sales of the Nintendo 3DS are up by more than 200% in the UK, retailers are reporting, with the 2DS being up by 222% and the 3DS XL being up by 234% year on year.
The increase in hardware sales comes as more and more people continue to purchase a 3DS to play mainline Pokemon games, as a result of the craze ignited by Pokemon GO‘s success, MCV UK reports, noting that all four 3DS Pokemon games (X, Y, OmegaRuby, and AlphaSapphire) charted in the weekly Top 50 charts, with Nintendo managing to get a staggering 10 games into the Top 50- making them UK’s number games publisher of retail games, in terms of value and revenue, and in terms of total units sold.
Retailers already expect this kind of craze to continue later into the year, feeding into the launch of Pokemon Sun/Moon, which look set to break franchise records when they launch later this year, exclusively on the Nintendo 3DS.