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3DS sells 113,000 at UK launch

New handheld system moves 303,000 units across Europe, but falls short of pre-order numbers in the UK.

Nintendo has said that the 3DS sold 113,000 units in its first two days on sale, and 303,000 units across Europe combined.

The figures are from Nintendo's own "sell-thru panel", not the independent Chart-Track data service, and fall short of the 140,000 pre-orders the company had detailed before launch.

Chart-Track's Dorian Bloch told GamesIndustry.biz shortly after the release of the figures that he would not comment on why Nintendo had rejected data from the official sales monitor and instead used internal stats.

However, the sales make it the fastest-selling Nintendo handheld to date. The DSi sold 92,000 units on release and the DS 87,000. Sony's PSP handheld, launched in 2005, sold 185,000 units.

The handheld launched last Friday in the UK with retailers and Nintendo putting on midnight events.

Software for the system filtered into the top ten on release, but only one game - Capcom's Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition - managed to break the top five.

Nintendo had originally predicted 4 million sales worldwide for the system by the end of March, but with these European numbers, under 800,000 Japanese sales and no detailed figures from the US, that target looks unlikely.

UPDATE: Nintendo of Germany has confirmed that the region accounted for 50,000 of the 303,000 unit total.

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Matt Martin

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Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.

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