Aside from his usual exploits saving the frequently-kidnapped Princess Peach, the other cause headlining Mario's to-do list has been reviving sales of Nintendo's flagging 3DS.

As a result, news the launch of Super Mario 3D Land has caused a 100 percent weekly rise in 3DS sales in Japan will please those sitting at Nintendo's top table, with the handheld selling more than 145,000 units in seven days.

The game itself also managed to shift more than 340,000 copies in its opening week, outperforming the device's second best-selling game – Square Enix's Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest 3 – by almost 9:1.

Show me the games

In total, Nintendo sold around 304,000 units throughout the course of October, though software sales were significantly lower, coming in at around 122,000.

It's a disparity that suggests that a fair number of 3DS owners out there have the handheld, but aren't buying games to play on it – a trend that ties in with Flurry's suggestion software sales on handhelds are suffering thanks to the rise fo the smartphone.

The full figures for the week are as follows -

1. Super Mario 3D Land (3DS, Nintendo) - 343,492

2. Uncharted 3 (PS3, Sony) 124,989

3. Battlefield 3 (PS3, EA) - 123,379

4. Final Fantasy Type-0 (PSP, EA) - 122,286 (594,540)

5. Kirby Wii (Wii, Nintendo) - 55,779 (192,589)

6. Winning Eleven 2012 (PSP, Konami) - 45,437

7. Slime Mori Mori Dragon Quest 3 (3DS, Square Enix) - 38,859

8. Battlefield 3 (360, EA) - 27,723

9. Just Dance Wii (Wii, Nintendo) - 25,665 (189,116)

10. Go Vacation (Wii, Namco Bandai) - 16,995 (89,463)

1. Nintendo 3DS - 145,271 (65,041)

2. PSP - 27,952 (30,605)

3. PlayStation 3 - 26,966 (25,217)

4. Wii - 11,725 (11,784)

5. Nintendo DSi LL - 2,041 (2,009)

6. Xbox 360 - 1,699 (1,704)

7. PlayStation 2 - 1,457 (1,228)

8. Nintendo DSi - 1,057 (1,061)

9. Nintendo DS Lite - 33 (55)

[source: Andriasang]