DS Smashes UK Sales Record

Decreased holiday spending isn’t hurting Nintendo’s handheld. The DS Lite is still selling like hot cakes in the U.K.

European sales data from GFK-ChartTrack and ELSPA shows the DS Lite broke the UK’s all-time weekly hardware sales record last week, according to MCV. In the currently dismal state of economic affairs, it’s always pleasant to get a morsel of upbeat news amidst the sea of cuts, layoffs, and setbacks.

“The DS Lite has beaten its own record, almost exactly a year after it first took the title. It wasn’t a huge jump, but it bodes well for the remaining weeks,” said GFK-ChartTrack director Dorian Bloch to MCV. “The interesting thing is that we can now assume that if there is still some DS Lite stock in the land in the next couple of weeks, the record will go again.”

Specific sales figures were not released, but the news bodes well for Nintendo’s handheld and the eventual release of the DSi in Europe. DS Lite sales skyrocketed in the months leading up to Christmas last year, when the system first took the record. Prior to that, Sony’s PSP broke the all-time sales record during its launch week in Sept. 2005.