“Wii Play mini-games are fun and they get people playing together,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Even if you believe people are buying Wii Play solely for the controller, that indicates that there are now more than 10 million people who have an extra Wii Remote controller in their homes. When added to the 12.7 million Wii Remote controllers that have sold separately, this reinforces the growing ‘social gaming’ trend we have been seeing where friends and family use their Wii games as a social hub – both in person and online.”

Wii system sales were up about 74 percent over February 2008, and Wii and NDS finished February as the top-selling hardware systems. Wii sold nearly 753,000, bringing its lifetime U.S. sales to nearly 19 million, while Nintendo DS sold nearly 588,000 for a lifetime U.S. total of nearly 29 million.

NDS demonstrated continued strength, as “evergreen” games like Mario Kart DS (launched November 2005) and New Super Mario Bros. (launched May 2006) again placed among the top sellers for February. The strong showing for NDS hardware and software demonstrates continued consumer interest in the portable system as the United States preps for the April 5 launch of the Nintendo DSi™ system, the third iteration of the hardware.

Five games made for Nintendo systems finished in the top 10 best-sellers of February. These include Wii Fit at No. 1 with nearly 644,000 sold, Wii Play at No. 2 with nearly 386,000 sold, Mario Kart Wii at No. 6 with nearly 263,000 sold, Mario Kart DS at No. 8 with nearly 145,000 sold and New Super Mario Bros. at No. 9 with more than 144,000 sold.