The new year is just underway, and Nintendo wants to make sure the world knows how well they’re doing and how confident they are heading into 2012. In a gleeful press release, Ninty broke news that they sold more than 12 million total hardware units in the US  in 2011. It breaks down like this: 4.5 million units of Wii, more than 4 million Nintendo 3DS systems, and over 3.4 million units of the Nintendo DS family of systems were sold last year. Some calculations later, the current install base for Wii is 39 million and for Nintendo DS it’s over 51 million. The house that built Mario blames their recent successes on a strong software lineup. 3DS games Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 have been crowned the fastest-selling titles in the history of their respective franchises when they launched. Additionally, Nintendo notes that they are now also the first 3DS games to sell 1 million units each in the US. Zelda also made an impact on the Wii; The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword became the 45th Wii game to sell over 1 million units in the States. And 2012 is already looking to be a solid year for Nintendo with highly anticipated games on the horizon; first-party titles from franchises such as Mario Party, Pokémon, and Kid Icarus as well as third party titles like Resident Evil Revelations (Capcom) and Metal Gear Solid 3D Snake Eater (Konami) are coming soon. And of course, don’t forget that their next home console the Wii U is expected to launch later this year. Get the full debrief directly from Nintendo after the break.

[Via Nintendo] Continue reading Nintendo sells 4.5 million Wii consoles and 4 million 3DS systems in 2011, blames Mario and Zelda →