In spite of the impending release of the 3DS Nintendo plan to continue supporting the original, at least in Europe.

Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata recently spoke about the persistent problem of the use of illegal carts such as MagiCom in Europe and the effect this piracy has had on Nintendo. While he commented that this is part of the problem he also admitted that declining sales could be due to Nintendo not producing a big hit such as Brain Training or Nintendogs for a while.

Speaking to investors recently he stated that they will continue to support the DS even when the 3DS launches in March. While this may be true of other regions the manner in which he was talking about it in specific relation to piracy suggests Europe is a key focus.

"Already in next year, we will launch Nintendo 3DS, but for the existing Nintendo DS family of devices, while we’ll intensify the legal and technical countermeasures against the likes of MagiCom, we’d like to change the situation by creating hit titles by leveraging, upon the already existing huge installed base of the hardware."

Changing to a more positive tone Mr. Iwata then spoke about the unexpected success of Art Academy, which resulted in stock shortages in some areas. Professor Layton and the Lost Future (or Unwound Future as it is known in America) has also been selling as well as its predecessors.