Here's how well the Nintendo 3DS is selling in the U.S.

The Nintendo Wii U may be struggling to achieve decent sales, but Nintendo is still counting on its 3DS handheld, which has now sold 11.5 million hardware units in the U.S. alone. To give that figure some context, the 3DS had sold 34.98 million units worldwide by September 2013. More context: In the first 16 months of its life, the 3DS sold 5 million in the U.S. In the 17 months since then, it has sold 6.5 million. The company noted that more than 16 million 3DS games were sold in 2013, across both retail and digital. That's a 45 percent increase over sales in 2012. And Nintendo put this down to a multitude of highly-rated Nintendo 3DS games that released in 2013, including The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds and Fire Emblem Awakening. Notably, Nintendo did not update sales of Wii U in the statement. It's also worth noting that the press release did not specifically mention holiday season sales.