Compared to the booming success Nintendo has enjoyed since the mid-decade launches of the DS and Wii, 2010 was a down year for the Japanese gaming giant, typified by a rare ¥2.01 billion ($24.5 million) loss during its April-September fiscal half-year. Still, the tremendous wind in Nintendo's sails was enough to propel it through 2010 with a pair of new sales records for its ubiquitous systems.

　　The DS has come a long way since 2004. Today, Nintendo announced that DS sales have surpassed 47 million units in the United States alone, making it "the nation's best-selling video game system of all time." That tally includes the original Nintendo DS, which launched in 2004, as well as the DS Lite (2006), DSi (2009), and DSi XL (2010) hardware revisions.

　　The publisher did not indicate which system's sales crown had been usurped by the DS. However, one likely contender is the PlayStation 2. Sony announced in January 2009 that the PS2 had become the first console in history to sell more than 50 million units in North America, which also includes Canada and Mexico. (In early 2008, Nintendo revealed GBA sales figures of 36.2 million in the US alone.)

　　As for Nintendo's second record of 2010, the publisher said that for the third consecutive year, Wii sales in the US tallied more than 7 million. According to Nintendo, the triple-crown effort is the first accomplished by a home console in the country. Nintendo went on to note that the Wii has now sold more than 34 million units in the US alone.

　　Nintendo is expected to release updated worldwide sales figures for the Wii when it reports its nine-month financials later this month. However, the publisher's most recent accounting put console sales at near 76 million worldwide through September 2010.