3DS Sales Boosted in Wake of Monster Hunter TGS Announcements

In a welcome change of pace from all the doom and gloom of recent weeks, Eurogamer is reporting that Nintendo’s 3DS has seen a healthy spike in sales, bumping it to the top of the Japanese charts last week and dropping Sony’s PlayStation 3 to second place.

With no new games released during the week, it would appear that the cause for the 3DS’s bump is its showcase at the Tokyo Game Show last Tuesday, during which Nintendo unveiled several high-profile games in development for the system.

Chief among these announcements was the revelation of two Monster Hunter games due out for the 3DS: a port of the franchise’s third installment called Monster Hunter 3G and a brand new entry exclusive to the 3DS, Monster Hunter 4.

The increase in hardware sales did not directly translate to the software side, however. The 3DS’s top selling game, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, came in at position 8 with another 10,504 units sold. The only other 3DS game to break the top 20 was Super Pokémon Rumble, finishing at ranking 12 and selling 7,698 copies.

However, with a series of high-profile releases due in the coming weeks – starting with Super Mario 3D Land the first week of November – the 3DS just might be able to get some momentum going. Most importantly, maybe we’ll hear a few less apocalyptic analyst predictions.