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400,000 Additional DSs Available by Year's End
SetupWeasel writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that 400,000 additional DSs will be shipped to the US by year's end. This will bring the US total to 1.4 million by the end of 2004." There's also a story running on Gamesindustry.biz regarding DS sales being in line with the sales of the Gameboy Advance.
While Nintendo has a large buffer in case of a failed console, ($1b) they still try to minimize possible economic hardship. Rather then have a massive run, then lose to a failed console, they slowly introduce new consoles to the marketplace, maintaining profits throughout.
That being said, PSP vs. DS should be fantastic. Both systems have fantastic games lined up for them, and both look to be really, really cool.
I had a chance to play with a DS. First impression? Nifty, but nothing to make me buy it... yet.
no
I'm not sure I can agree with you there. PDA's, while still high in sales, have been falling as multi-function cell phones increase.
You also have to consider your target audience...kids simply don't care about managing a contact list of 100 business cards or balancing their checkbook...they want to play games. I think handhelds are here to stay, and I don't see them being replaced by pda's any time soon.
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
It doesn't fucking matter it's still the OFFICIAL name of the system. Just like Windows NT. Nobody ever called it Windows New Technology. That's just stupid.
In reality, it takes only a few moments thought to see that a strategy of keeping supply artificially low for such a product is foolish and doomed to failure.
In reality, the better strategy is to get people to *think* there is a shortage, and reinforce this notion by having a short-term shortage around now, but quietly slip market-clearing quantities into the market closer to christmas.
</sarcasm>
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
The product's name is Nintendo DS. How can they possibly get more specific than to tell you exactly what it is. Do you want a couple of sentences of summary after ever time the mention it? "The Nintendo DS, a portable game console" etc... It would be silly to do something like that for the PS2 or the Xbox, right? "The Xbox, Microsoft's video game console..." It gets a little redundant.
Also, this is the *games* section of Slashdot. Since the DS has been mentioned in other posts in this section, and even linked to repeatedly, you should know what it is if you're paying attention.
And FYI, I'm also not 14, and I bathe regularly.
400,000 more systems is all well and good... but what about selfish bastards such as myself who've already managed to get theirs and just want more games? The DS itself is quite nice indeed (as other posters have already mentioned... check it out yourself at Best Buy or your local game store if you doubt), but the only game that's really worthwhile at this point is Mario 64 DS, which got kinda old kinda quick. It's a great game and all, and yeah, they changed some stuff around from the original, but it's still just Mario 64. Where's the Metroid game? Where's Final Fantasy III? Where's any mention whatsoever of Zelda? Give me a new Kid Icarus, dammit! This is Nintendo, I expect more first party goodness than the lackluster launch titles are providing me with.
Citizens demand more games!
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx
There are at least TEN people above you complaining about the same thing... guess what? Products have NAMES. They don't call the new ATI card "ATI Really Cool Video Card with Pixel Shading". They give it a name. The name is usually a couple of letters and numbers stuck together. The fact that you don't know the name of a video game console isn't really /.'s fault. You might as well say "What the hell is a Nintendo?"
If, after many dozens of stories on this item, after 500,000 of them have already been sold in the space of weeks, after marketing campaigns and endless flamewars about DS vs. PSP, you still don't know what the thing is, you know what? You just might be out of the fucking loop.
Nope - it sure isn't. I spent way to much on a Pocket PC PDA and I admit one of the primary reasons was retro gaming. I own GBs and GBAs (yes - multiple) but I hate having to carry around multiple small cartridges which can be easily lost.
My PocketPC handles NES, GB, GBC, PC Engine, Sega Master system, Game Gear, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Spectrum and Apple 2 games as well as some SNES and Genesis (not as well). There is also GBA emulation but its not very good.
The great thing - aside from the nostalgia, is that a lot of these older games are perfect for quick pickup play. Most emulators support memory saves as well - meaning you can put it down at a moments notice even if you are close to getting that high score.
You can fit a hell of a lot of games on a 512MB SD card and Compact Flash drives go up to 4GB if you need more storage.
The added bonuses aside from the usual PDA features are that it plays both audio and video. You get mp3, ogm, avi and mpg playback.
There are also excellent native Pocket PC games including ports of Age of Empires, Warlords 2 and Ultima Underworld. RTS, RPG even FPS games are available.
So yeah its expensive, but it is a hell of a toy if you can justify the cost.
If you have a model with bluetooth and or 802.11b its great for ssh or terminal services too.
My biggest complaint is that someone needs to come out with a gaming oriented model, so we can get a decent button layout. One of the main considerations in my purchase was the dpad and button setup.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
IBM isn't even a big player in the PC market.
I don't know what color the sky is on your planet, but here on blue-sky Earth, IBM's PC business is the third-largest in the industry.
Furthermore, you're comparing purchases for a product that just shipped to the revenues for an entire year. The comparison just doesn't make sense.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I dunno, I think it would be hard to qualify Metroid Prime: Hunters or GoldenEye DS as "cute". I think there's going to be scores of RPGs (most of which are similarly not-cute) for the DS because of the capabilities provided by the second screen, e.g. tapping menus instead of scrolling through them.
Even if the majority of Nintendo's first- and second-party titles are cute, I have yet to play one that I didn't enjoy. Windwaker, despite its cartoonish appearance was fun and challenging, and the characters were all very expressive even when under player control. I found the attention to detail amazing.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
I don't remember anything really fun on gamecube aside from zelda.
Then you haven't looked. Case closed. Did you know that an improved version of Metal Gear: Solid was released exclusively for the Gamecube?
Also, Final Fantasy 6 is widely regarded as the best in the series, and it was on the SNES. Metal Gear started on the NES. Of course, many people think that video games started with the PlayStation, so I can't really fault you there.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Probably the fact that I own the same game for the N64.
I'm f#$king magic!