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DS Pre-Orders Stopped as Sales Soar
GamesIndustry.biz has the story that major retailers Gamestop and EBGames are likely going to stop DS Preorders because they're coming so fast that they won't be able to meet demand when the system launches. From the article: "It appears that six games will be available on day one - Nintendo's Super Mario 64 DS, Sega's Feel The Magic XY/XX, Activision's Spider-Man 2, Ubisoft's Asphalt Urban GT and two from EA - Madden NFL 2005 and The Urbz: Sims in the City." Gamespot also has details on the handheld shortage.
Try actually following the links or spending about 10 seconds searching on Google...Crazy concept, isn't it?
... The Nintendo DS -- short for dual-screen -- will be unveiled Tuesday morning at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo game industry gathering. ... "
Google for "nintendo DS". 3rd result on the first page -
"USATODAY.com - Nintendo unveiling a new portable
One day, a rather ordinary guy sees a really beautiful woman on the street. Before he can move to follow her, he finds himself holding a bag of goldfish. Apparently, the goldfish are ingested by a passerby who bumps into our ordinary guy. After helping him regurgitate the fish, the ordinary guy is recruited into a "superperformance group" called the Rub Rabbits. Their pitch to him is that the best way for him to see the woman of his dreams again is to stage an amazing performance for her. And thus begins your adventure.
I'm not making this up.
We spoke with some people in Nintendo's media/analyst relations department as well as a vice president who said that the company is shipping 1 million units for Nov. 21. This shortage doesn't appear to be an illusion.
If demand really is so high that retailers are stopping pre-orders then there may be a problem on the manufacturing side with a possible component shortage, or a simple lack of manufacturing capacity to produce more. There are a limited number of suppliers for some of the components that go into the DS and those suppliers have other customers besides Nintendo.
A few weeks back, we spent a couple of hours in a hands-on preview of the Nintendo DS and previewing/playing Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt, Super Mario 64 DS, Spider-Man 2 DS and the onboard PictoChat instant messaging software.
We also checked out a few more titles yesterday, and will publish first impressions of those games soon.