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On January 31st, 2013, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed that the best selling Nintendo games in 2012 were Pokémon Black and White 2 which sold over 7.5 million combined copies worldwide.


Iwata explained the reason that Nintendo 3DS sales were millions below projected targets was because of the lack of hit titles being released outside of Japan. "I have just explained that in the Japanese market the Nintendo 3DS platform is already established as the market leader. On the other hand, however, we could not launch hit titles which could lead the markets towards the end of the year abroad and sales are largely behind our target overseas. This is one of the main reasons for our downward revision to our annual shipment target from 17.50 million units to 15.00 million units."

To compensate for the lack of hit titles, Nintendo has announced 4 major franchise titles: "DRAGON QUEST VII Eden no Senshitachi," "Tomodachi Collection" (temp.), "MONSTER HUNTER 4" and "Pokémon X/Pokémon Y." In addition, a variety of titles will be released by Nintendo and other Japanese software developers. In that sense, I hope few people are concerned about the momentum of the Nintendo 3DS in the Japanese market. To export the momentum to the overseas markets, we plan to actively release our key titles for Nintendo 3DS which could potentially lead the markets this year. "Pokémon X/Pokémon Y," to be launched in October worldwide, could be the most-anticipated one and "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," released in Japan last year, will be available in the first half of this year. We have already announced that "Fire Emblem Awakening," "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity," "Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon," "Brain Age: Concentration Training" and "LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins" will be released in the first half of this year."

Source: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131