3DS Sells Like Crazy In Japan, Nears PS3 Lifetime Sales

The Nintendo 3DS was badgered pretty badly in its first few months out on the market, with a lot of doom and gloom surrounding the device due to the gimmicky autostereoscopic 3D feature and slow starting sales. Well, Nintendo is really rolling in the big time as the 3DS has outsold Sony's PlayStation Vita at a 46 to 1 ratio and is nearing the PlayStation 3's lifetime sales in Japan.

According to Nintendo Gamer, the Nintendo 3DS has moved a whopping 187,077 SKUs in the last week, compared to a paltry 4,021 SKUs moved for the PS Vita in the same week span.

The site further reports that the Nintendo 3DS in Japan has hit a lifetime margin of 8 million units sold, in which case the PS3 has more than 8 and a half-million lifetime total sales in Japan. As noted by VGChartz the 3DS really is closing in on the PS3 and it won't be long before Nintendo's handheld stands side-by-side with the Wii, towering over every other game device as the king of gaming.

While there's all sorts of analysts out there saying that handheld gaming is dying and mobile devices are taking over, the Nintendo 3DS seems to be doing well enough that it'll soon bypass the PS3 in Japan before the year is out...if it keeps selling at its current rate.