Nintendo sold 500K Wii consoles in the U.S. alone during Black Friday

Nintendo sold over 500,000 Wii consols in the U.S. market on Black Friday, according to a report from USA Today. Those are some pretty successful numbers for a five-year old console that most consider underpowered and poorly supplied with must-have game titles.

The sales included Black Friday, as well as some ‘pre-Black’ store openings. This was undoubtedly helped along by a deal for a $99 limited edition blue Wii sold only at Wal-Mart stores.

Nintendo’s Regie Fils-Aime thinks that Nintendo’s software offerings will continue to boost these sales numbers. “For us, it really was driven by unique and powerful software,” said Fils-Aime, “and what gives us confidence is that we still have more software to launch in the balance of this holiday period.”

The sales of the Nintendo 3DS console, a general disappointment for Nintendo so far, tripled last week, up 325%. The portable had gotten a 49% boost when Super Mario Land was released earlier this month.

Despite the troubles of the 3DS, Fils-Aime said that it has surpassed the first year sales of the DS in just 8 months. This may be a way to spin the story on the 3DS, but it’s not an extremely successful one, as the DS was almost universally panned as an oddity and an unsure bet at its introduction, and took time to gather steam.

That being said, the success of Super Mario 3D land and the upcoming release of Mario Kart 7 should help to bolster holiday sales. Perhaps this is the period that will allow it to get over the hump from an ‘unnecessary upgrade’ to a ‘must have’.

As far as the Wii goes, Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword has sold 535K copies since November 20th, becoming the fastest selling Zelda game of all time. That surely won’t hurt sales of the Wii at all, and may keep this late surge of the console alive until the release of the Wii U next year.