Nintendo will continue to support full Nintendo DS line in Europe

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said the company will continue to support the existing DS line in Europe despite the impending release of 3DS next year.

This is despite the decline in software sales in the region, which Iwata blames mainly on piracy.

"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 [piracy devices] MagiCom, we’d like to change the situation by creating hit titles by leveraging, upon the already existing huge installed base of the hardware," Iwata told investors.

Iwata used Art Academy as an example of a game within the region which "launched with higher than expected sales" along with Professor Layton and the Unwound Future doing just as well as other games in the franchise.

At least until the install base becoming larger for 3DS, or it gets a higher than expected adoption rate.

3DS launches in Japan on February 26, 2011. It’ll release in the US and Europe in March.