Slashdot Mirror
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.
Harrison said the company did not try to keep the initial Nintendo DS supply artificially low to attract extra attention. Whereas reports of shortages can increase the buzz around a product, inadequate supply can also result in lost sales.
What he didn't think of is to give the perception of inadequate supply, but continue to fill up shelves. This way Nintendo gets the extra attention as well as sales.
Just give some lame excuses like the Chinese government did what to the Taiwanese Tibetan thing, AC where are you?!?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
I wonder what Sony has to same about all this. :P
Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
"Harrison said the company did not try to keep the initial Nintendo DS supply artificially low to attract extra attention."
;)
However with demand high and supply low... it makes the news! Strange that...
I have one of those... I call it a pda.
Mercy was given to me by Christ...I must give the same to others.
How about a little better editing? What is a "DS"?
lololol first post faggots lololol GNAA FOR LIVE
Hey, Editors. The first time an acronym is used, you DEFINE IT. After that, you are allowed to use the acronym.
One hopes that Sony can possibly keep up when it comes to launching the PSP. If history is of any precedent, this won't be the case.
Unfortunately.
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
I had the chance to play one of these with Metroid. I really liked it. There seems to be some discussion over the usefulness of the touch pad and I've found that the touch pad servers to mimic a mouse in fps's quite well. I felt at home pretty quickly. It was quite responsive too. I'm still holding out for the PSP though. I think nintendo games are a little too cute for me.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Kinda sucks cuz backwards compatibility is what made all the previous gameboys so successful. Oh well, I guess it's time for people to finally buy a COLOR version of tetris.
he ability to increase the shipments for the holidays resulted from higher-than-expected volume at production facilities in China
Here's a dumb connection: IBM sells its PC group to Lenovo, a company in China. Suddenly, China starts producing more DS's? You thing that's stupid?
Perhaps, a new Starbucks opened in the production sector...
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
My EBay DS Sales will go down the tubes... Now where am I supose to make all my Christmas Money?
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
...what DS stands for... Dual Screen
I have a PDA(Ipaq) and i have had some problems with the touch screen, especially when it gets greasy or dirty. I cant imagine how bad it will be when you are eating chips and playing on your DS. I wonder how well the screens will hold up then?
...if these people just artificially inflate demand around the holidays through talk about "undersupply", and then pop a load of 'em on the market just in time. Nah, couldn't possibly be! [Just like every other year.]
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
I too feel that other technology will soon repace handhelds. Not because handhelds are bad in any way, in fact I love them, but they don't last long enough. Oh they are durable (usually) but they tend to get raplaced by newer models within a year or so that don't play any of your old games. And worse as soon as the new one comes out they stop making games for your old one. Note that this doesn't ahppen with a computer. Yes you machine does need to be upgraded every two or three yers (if you aren't a die-ahrd), but unlike a handheld the new one still plays your old games, and if you are resistant to upgrading there are still many games (not high-profile but still numerous) that your machine can play. As soon as pdas become powerful enough I predict that most handhelds will die off or get replaced by something new. (with one excaption, sony's handheld plays all those old ps1 games that you already have, now it might be worth it with such a large and *inexpensive* game base, unlike nintendo)
Philosophy.
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
what the heck is a "DS"? Did I miss anything?
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
...of other substances hitting the touchscreen worry me far more, especially when they "hit" the secondary market.
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
It's not an acronym, DS is the name of the system.
The Nintendo DS
This is one device that was available in the US first. (Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/09/163521 7&tid=126)
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
(now guess the reference)
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
Wow that is a suprise: American units outselling Japan Units. I applaud Nintendo of America for boosting available units. Unlike what happened with that tragic accident with the Nintendo 64.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
Whew! Thank goodness I'm impervious to marketing and hype!
ooo there's a platinum version of helloworld.c coming out...must have *drool*
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"400,000 additional DSs will be shipped to the US by year's end"
..whew. I was worried for a moment that someone was going to send 400,000 more Dumb Sh*ts to the US.
Oh Nintendo DS!
Still, I couldn't justify purchasing it.. There's just nothing compelling software-wise that makes me want to jump and buy this thing. I'd love to see some classic PC remakes like command and conquer on there. That would be cool.
www.lonseidman.com
Well, Nintendo announced a few weeks ago they were bringing another factory online for manufacturing these things, so it's no surprise they'll be able to produce more at this point.
Better to promise a low number and then boost it, than to pull a Sony and promise 2 million PS2, and only deliver 500,000. I'd rather have the impression that there's demand, than the impression that they'll be in stock when I get to the store and they're not!
the PSP touts it's supreme processing power while the DS already has such a stranglehold on the market.
It seems to me like the DS is the PS2 of handhelds and the PSP is the XBox.
and I can tell you that of that 400,000 more that are supposed to ship by Christmas, I will see four more tomorrow and maybe four more next week.
Of course, I have a waiting list of over 30 customers who want one. Supply and Demand isn't exactly working the way it should, hype aside.
Same with the PlayStation 2 remake. We're getting eight in stock tomorrow, and I have almost 50 people on the waiting list.
For all of you who don't know what is a DS, it is Nintendo's new handheld game console.
It has two screens (Dual Screens - DS) and some mighty hardware.It's main rival will be Sony PSP.
For more information, just google arround a bit.
--the troll in me--
Here is some info about DS
--the troll in me--
As more and more people become interested in DS hacking and home-brew development, I must personally say that this is the best news we have heard in a while. The Ni-Fi hacking scene as well as the DS cart dumping scene is moving along quite nicely, and every bit of help we can get, the better.
I completely agree, the DS interface gives nintendo the edge over PSP in allowing them to create RTS games that have always relied on a mouse for controlling groups of units and quickly selecting teh appropriate action. Hopefully nintendo plans on exploiting this advantage.
Blizzard made a few gameboy advance games, will we see warcraft on the DS?
If they sell them all (at Amazon prices)...
1.4m DSes sold, that's 0.3bn dollars, or 0.02bn pounds. Remove the ammount they pair their retail channel...
Just goes to show how truely insignificant the market for games consoles is. IBM's now-ex PC business has an $11bn turnover, 37 times the size of Nintendo's DS turnover (ignoring SPA sales for now), and IBM isn't even a big player in the PC market.
Curiously enough if you owned the US monopoly on DSes then you could purchase 150 million beers. Sufficient for any party one might think.
Beep beep.
PSP EBay Sales.
The answer lies in effort
I was wondering if the DS and PSP and N-Gage will have the online capabilities of a computer or just in the 100 ft. radius or something. Please respond. I know Nokia had an N-Gage Arena thing, but I'm not too up-2-date on the details... BTW...I only play online games, classic remakes, and rpgs, so this will really help me decide what I purchase (if anything).
Kidz! What is a DS ? Put it in the lead part of the story !
....if Nintendo can get their attention. This may be the first console that Blizzard could release a successful game for, since all their best games rely heavily on the mouse.
Starcraft on a DS.... 'nuff said.
I've got more mod points and GMail invi
This is all fine and dandy but when is the UK, and the rest of Europe, getting the DS?
I like muppets.
What is a DS???!!
I hate blurbs that us acronums and then just assume that everybody knows what it means. Come one, people, use some common sense.
(All upper case intended.)
Fata viam invenient.
That's funny, I thought they stopped making the DS in 1975...
~
~
~
-- INSERT --
In typical Slashdot fashion, it is assumed that everybody knows what DS is. I've been working with computers and technology for a long ass time, and I, for one, have no frickin' clue what a DS is. Not all of here are frickin' 14 years old, you know! SOME OF US EVEN BATHE! It would've been considerate to mention what DS means right in the parent post.
So, what's a DS?
As an added bonus, fewer people would call you ignorant, and you might just become a little less ignorant in the process.
Not to go on about your ignorance far too much, but are you the kind of person who walks around the office asking for someone to define a word for you, rather than picking up a dictionary or typing "define:ignorant" into google? Damn that's annoying. Please stop.
Or an AOL? Or a PSP? Or an LCD? Or a PHP?
Come on people, before you complain what a certain acryonym is, take two seconds of your time and click the link. I promise it'll take you less time than asking.
That would also be a great game for the DS.
Especially with two screens.
You mean the parent poster isn't flamebait, but my reply is?
HAHAHA
Fucking retarded slashdot.
I guess this is where all the "Dumb Sh*ts" are.
As if there was ever any doubt.
Oh wait maybe if I add "USA Sucks" my post will get modded up LOL.
I tried one out in the store. I have fairly large hands, and I found the controls very uncomfortable. I started to get a hand cramp after a few minutes because the d-pad and the buttons were too close to the edge of the unit.
They should have wireless controllers that you can use with this thing. That way if you need the pocket-sized portability you can leave the comfortable controller home.
The touchscreen is okay, but I dislike touching any screen with my fingers (mostly because I don't like cleaning screens).
The screen resolution and graphics quality are okay, but could be much better. There are lots of jaggies. I don't think portables are really ready for 3d yet.
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
I just saw a commercial and the 2nd screen was being used as a customized button interface.
Don't get me wrong, I think a 2nd small monochrome screen for a button interface could be a good idea, but the second screen on the DS is suppose to support color and advanced games interfaces, and the best some game engineer could think to do with it was make it for buttons.
Now the PSP looks sweet. Please people hold out for this one, with its larger wide screen display and DVD quality video on the go.
Letter To Iran
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.
Maybe you are using it Wrong?
The stylus is suppossed to touch the screen, not the finger. Just like you don't Fist your pda screen. And the dual screens is suppossed to be a redundant measure to make sure that you don't have finger prints. The Upper screen is suppossed to stay clean.
touch screen +
decent cpu +
flash memory +
i/o networkable +
portable +
$150 price
------------
$150 general purpose computer
Why doesn't MS just buy a dev kit for DS, port Windows CE to it and release a $200 tablet PC on the DS platform?
This makes me think: if the GameBoy Advanced
(released in 2001) has the capabilities of
the NES (early 1990s?) and the DS has the
capabilities of the N64 (released in 1996),
it means handheld technology is catching up
with consoles with a delay of about 8 to 10
years. Therefore, in 2012-2014, we can expect
a handheld device that will have the power
and versatility of today's GameCubes and
XBoxes!
But then, maybe the delay isn't that long,
since the PSP is rumored to be more or less
as powerful as the PS2...
How lazy does one have to be gripe about using google? Does that make breathing and blinking a reason to gripe too?
Its not like people gripe when a Computer is referred to as a Computer and no link is provided.
Because you can buy pocketPCs for that price that have a much larger touchscreen.
They won't have wifi, but the models that do aren't too much up in cost.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
.... for somebody to ask the obvious: WHY is this a /. post? Use some frikkin' sense and put it on games.slashdot or something.
This isn't front-page news.
By the way, the DS is AWESOME!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx
Who knows! But we have 400,000 more of them available! Kick ass!
The DS has been talked about for over year and you can actually buy them. This excludes it from "cutting edge" on a nerd site, in my opinion.
More importantly, did you not notice:
1. The first word of the headline is "GAME:" (ie, it's in the games section.
2. The color photograph of a Nintendo Game Boy next to the DS post?
If you need more context than that on a nerd news site, you should consider being spoonfed your news at CNN or MSN.
Ham and egg's - $3.00
And people, the plural of "CD" is "CDs," NOT CD's.
I can only think of one exception to the rule: if you are talking about more than one "A," such as getting straight A's, omitting the apostrophe makes it looks like "As" which would be very confusing.
For all you programmers: you don't like reading spaghetti-code, so why write spaghetti English?
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
I'm worried what will happen when I try to play my DS and eat barbecue spare ribs at the same time. How responsive will the touchscreen be when it's covered with tangy barbecue sauce?
From a logistics and marketing perspective, it would just be too darn complicated to try to pull off a trick like that. It would be much easier to just try to sell as many units as possible.
They just had an article on Yahoo how Game Boys help children relax before surgery:
4 1&ncid=738&e=3&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_he_me/hospital s_game_boy
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=5
seriously, he is dead on, wtf...retarded mods
Jesus fuck, people, would it kill you to stick "Nintendo" somewhere in the summary text? The hell makes you think that "DS" is to special and unique a term that even an average slashdot reader would immediately know what it is? I'm sure there's a subset of nintendo geeks who will find this instantly obvious, but could you please make things clear to the rest of it? It'd really streamline my process of not caring. Thanks.
If I am traveling with a backpack, the extra space of a comfortable controller wouldn't matter much, though you probably would have to have a way to slip the DS into the controller so that you could hold the screens in the right way.
I don't think that using the sytlus would work well when playing games. You need to use those fingers to hold the DS.
My main complaint about the screen I guess is the resolution. It should be at least 320x240 now. I retract my comment about it not being ready for 3d. The poly count is probably better than a PS1. However, the resolution is sorely lacking.
I am excited about the wireless and the possible hackability of it though.
Scarcity ($car City) often brings out the worst
in people.
Some of us do not even play computer games. Not a comment on those who do... whatever lights your fire.
Even if all 400k of those Dumb Shits were in Ohio Diebold still would have stolen it.
Dumb Shits can't win because they aren't smart or patriotic like Republicans.
Why handhelds?
I bought a Gameboy Advance used for about $20 USD so I could connect it to my gamecube for things like the Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion link bonuses. After I had picked up a few games for it I invested in the SP because it has a better form factor, a backlit screen, better battery life, etc..
Now I carry it everywhere. Bored on the bus and riding alone? I pull out my GBA and play some Metroid. TV in use? No problem, I've got my own screen.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
I should clarify, it's not that ALL nintendo games are cute, it's more that so many of them are. I want a system where most of the games aren't bubbly characters looking to be happy all the time. I like games like final fantasy, metal gear, and the other games that were so big on playstation. I don't remember anything really fun on gamecube aside from zelda. I'm sure there were some good games, but none that made me buy the system. As for the really awesome nes games of the past, well, I have a nintendo. I don't need all the same games on my portable to make me buy a portable. Also, I like the DS. I just can't afford to commit to one system when I still might really like another one.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06 -27&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2003-06 -27
I don't think the GBA to PS2 factor really matters as they are completely different markets. Sony has never made a portable before, but if it works anything like their experience in consoles, they'll sweep Nintendo into the corner and let them take the kids' and budget gaming markets.
I have a GB, GBC, GBA, SP, and GCN, and they're great systems, but so far I've seen Nintendo offer a system with minor graphical improvements and some fiddly gimmicks I really don't want on a handheld, with a lineup of games I'm not really interested in because it looks like they were written as DS gimmick demos. (oo, steer/aim with a touchscreen! Blow on the mic!)
In the other corner, we have a system that's like a handheld PS2. The Japanese "mita?" ads say it best really: Someone will be sitting there playing their PSP, and someone else wanders by and just stares in awe at it until they're noticed. A nice large screen should help those advanced 3D graphics stay nice and visible in a variety of situations. Several of the launch titles look like solid games on their own without falling back on awkward "features." In fact, at least the Armored Core game is making a portable AND console release.
I'd go for the PSP, except for one thing, it's not even for sale in North America yet, something that's going to hurt Sony in the long run. Also, the GBA really isn't insufficient in any way, and I haven't come close to beating all the good games for it, so I don't NEED a new handheld... I have a backlog of awesome games as it is! Maybe it's just me, but this whole new "handheld war" just seems like noise from both sides to get sales up again.
Like the parent post says though, it comes down to what you're looking for in a handheld and people will grab whichever has what they want. I just can't help but see Nintendo's other "innovations" when I see the DS. Things like the Track & Field pad, U-Force, ROB, Power Glove, Super Scope, Virtual Boy, GB camera, FF: Crystal Chronicles GBA link cable, etc... Innovative for sure, but useless outside the scope of the one (or up to a half dozen sometimes!) games they were made for.
I like the way my NES retro GBA-SP looks, but after five minutes at EB with the DS, I can tell you that the DS is FAR, FAR more comfortable for a guy like me with huge mitts and long fingers. Extended periods on the SP make me crunch my hands up and together, usually interlocking ring and pinky fingers under the unit just to give them something to grasp (too long!) while the old style GBA was unplayable because of the lack of backlight. The DS has that old-GBA feel, nice and wide and comfy (though even wider would be better... not as much as the first Xbox controllers, but the current Xbox S pads are very nice) and it plays my GBA games! I don't currently own any GB or GBC titles that haven't been updated for GBA, so I think it's time to upgrade once I get through the Christmas spending necessities of my family. Definitely a comfortable portable for those of us who have large hands.
You know who stores often put empty boxes on display if the item is small and expensive? You bring the box up, pay for the item and then they bring you a real one from the back? Well...
A few days after release, once I had determined that there were no DS system left in Huntsville, I wandered into a Software Etc. store in the mall and there were three boxes, with price stickers, sitting on the shelf above the demo unit and games. Already feeling like an idiot for asking, I said, "Do you really have these three in stock?" The clerk said, "No, those are the boxes for the pre-orders that haven't been picked up." Jerks.
Skip ahead a coupla weeks. I go in Toys R Us to do some Christmas shopping. They have a board up toward the front of the store listing new video game releases. In big letters, they list "Nintendo DS". I already know they're lying, but when I get back in electronics, they have 30-40 boxes with price tags in a huge display in the middle of the electronics dept. Again, knowing the answer, I ask a clerk if they actually *have* the product they are displaying and she says, "No, those are just display boxes. We sold out two weeks ago, but we haven't had a chance to pull the boxes." Yeah, right. They've got middle of the aisle toy displays all over the store, overstock stacked to the ceiling, and two many people trying to maneuver shopping carts through the maze, but they haven't had time in *2 weeks* to pull 40 empty boxes off a shelf and toss them behind a counter. I guess they enjoy answering the same question over and over and having pissed off people stand in line for 20 minutes holding an empty box for a non-existent item. I'd hate to be a cashier.
The other day, I heard Sears had some, but I didn't even bother going to look.
What confuses me about this is that I can see (in a misleading way) displaying these empty boxes to get people into the store, but in all three stores, you couldn't see them until you were already in the store shopping. What possible reason could a store have to mislead shoppers and piss them off?
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
You took the words right out of my mouth ;)
I also hate the tangy, greasy barbeque sauce all over my screen, let alone my pants..
For every report that there's a lot in stock, there are many cities with absolutely none in sight, and no mention of when the new shipment will come in. I t is not hype, Nintendo had no idea it was going to be this successful on a launch system.
To be fair, part of the reason Nintendo usually starts off with a smaller amount of things in the US is to see if they'll even take off first. They've been burned in the past by things like the Virtual Boy, the Super Gameboy, etc. which did not sell as well as they had hoped. Nintendo is a Japanese company and they test the waters in the US to see if something is going to take off there, then if it does, ship in more to sell. I mean, the DS could have been a collosal failure. Some were predicting that six months ago. The device is hopelessly Japanese and quirky. Somehow, they've pulled it off yet again.
That's strange, I could have sworn that an acronym had to form an existing word. DS isn't a word in the English language (or any other language that I'm aware of), so it is not an acronym. On top of that, it [i]is[/i] the product's name.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
By the way, if anyone in Finland is lusting after a DS or PSP, I can send one to you (for a fee).
o m/psp.php
http://www.bemmu.com/ds.php
http://www.bemmu.c
The unit comes with a thumb strap, it is a piece of plastic which straps to your thumb. You use the same motions as you would with your thumb, but without actually touching the screen.
I know because I have a DS. The thumb strap works GREAT, I wouldn't use the thing without it.
Or am I the only one who love my sp more than the ds? I just kinda hated the early 3d console aera, n64 sucked.
I think I'm going to sit tight with my sp, buy up some cheap games, and then switch to psp when it comes out.
-makoffee
What is a DS indeed? Whatever it is, it's not worth my time. Mwa ha ha ha HAAAA!
Regards,
Ken Kutaragi
Hey, who knows what games are going to run on the DS? I dunno, maybe i'd buy one of these portable console, but i know nothing of the games that run on them. Plus, i got ripped getting a gamecube, wich sucked because it runs about only 2-3 good games. SO? WHO'S GOING TO FLAME ME AND HELP OUT?
Why don't we mention what an iPod or, hell, a PC is in every summary? Because at some point the term has appeared often enough to be presumed known. The DS is way past this point. The few people who still don't know can simply enter "DS" into Google and have their answer quicker than asking here.
Gillette seems to be failing to generate good revenue on razor sales for Q4 2004.
They claim to be making money off the blades, but that sounds as nonsense!
How in the @#$% can anyone in their right mind prefer the Xbox controller over the GameCube controller? I have both systems and like them both a lot, but the GameCube controller is much much MUCH more ergonomically designed, IMO. It's not so good for fighting games, but that's its only drawback.
BTW, Metroid Prime has fantastic controls. You are clearly a moron.
The NeoGeo Pocket Color was the second generation of the machine. Previously it was the NeoGeo Pocket, which was black-and-white.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
My local Target got around 12 in this morning. I needed two (I ain't scalping them, I've got two spoiled kids), but they would only sell me one. I bought one, went and ate lunch, drove back and bought another from a different clerk. They only had 5 when I returned for the second one.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
The US does not have 5 times as many people! Stupid Mexican immigrant!