In a surprise move the biggest selling console in America last month wasn't the 3DS, it was the DS.

While sales within the American video games industry were down 4% from the previous year during March Nintendo certainly did well thanks to the success of both the Nintendo 3DS and Pokémon Black & White. However, it is not the 3DS that sold the most hardware units in March, it was the DS. The sales-monitoring organisation NPD spoke out about the success of the console today: "The best-selling hardware platform for the month was indeed the Nintendo DS despite the launch of the 3DS at the end of the month."

In an interview with USA Today Nintendo of America's president Reggie Fils-Aime confirmed that the 3DS sold slightly less than 400,000 units in March following the console's release on March 27th. The biggest selling 3DS title Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, which recently shipped 1 million units around the world.

Nintendo also topped the software charts thanks to the success of Pokémon Black & White, which had combined sales of 2.5 million copies. The games, launched at the start of the month, are presumed to be the reason for the exponential sales of the original DS that saw it sell 460,000 units during March.

I would characterize it as a launch where we learned significant lessons from the launch of Wii and we made sure to have not only ample supply in the marketplace, but we staged supply so it would not sell out. We had product going direct to store and we also had product in retailers (distribution centers), so they could easily replenish when they had stores running low on inventory. That strategy is why you didn't see massive sellouts on Nintendo 3DS. Obviously, a sell-through of 400,000 units in one week is exceptional. And the fact that we achieved that without people being worried about massive stockouts and shortages just underscored how we properly executed our supply chain.

Mr. Fils-Aime