Nintendogs Sells Quarter of a Millions Units

Zangief writes "Nintendogs, the quirky DS title about dogs, has sold more than a quarter of a million units in its first week on the U.S. market. This puts to rest the argument that Nintendogs wouldn't appeal to the Western consumers, obsessed with 'mature' games." Expect our look at the title next week.

Comments

Sponsoring television too...

[Ford Prefect]

There's a prime-time television programme in the UK called 'It's Me or the Dog' - one of the never-ending succession of formats involving things like unruly children and the taming thereof, unhygienic students and the fumigation thereof, infectious kitchens and the incineration thereof, ad nauseam...

It's sponsored by 'Nintendogs'. I've no idea if the game's even available in the UK yet - but I still couldn't help but think of Penny Arcade's approach... ;-)

Not everyone can have a pet

[alvinrod]

Second, from TFA: Nintendogs Selling Outta Control Who knew so many were too lazy to raise real pets? My sentiments exactly.

I lived on a farm for a lot of my life or in a small town and was able to have pets if I wanted to. However, there are a lot of people who just aren't able to have pets. If you live in a big city in an apartment, chances are you won't be able to have a cat or a dog. If you're still living with your parents there's nothing you can do about it. A 14 year old can't just got out an get a place of their own and have a pet.

Additionally, pets can be very expensive and time consuming. You can generally get one for low costs from an animal shelter, but a specific breed is going to cost you some money. After thise you need to continually buy food which varies in price depending how much your dog or cat can eat.

Next there are vet expenses associated with keepign the animal healthy. A dog might need to be fixed so you don't end up with puppies. Shots and vaccinations are always a good idea as well.

Now add in some of your time. It's going to take time to feed, water, and care for the pet. Add in time to teach it to behave and house break it and that adds up.

You could easily spend thousands of dollars in food, care, and time taking care of a real pet, assuming you can even have one in the first place. Or you can go out and buy a DS for $130 and the game for another $35 or so and play it at your leisure. Is it the same as having a real pet? Of coruse not. But it might be a good thing for some people who've wanted pets but are unable to keep them or afford them.

Re:Not everyone can have a pet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll second the parent. Let's take it a step farther tho.

If a game is fun, who the hell cares if it just so happens to be about raising a puppy? I didn't hear any people complaining that people too lazy to have children are playing The Sims.

The naysayers using this line are the ones that are just looking for a reason to a) loathe nintendo and/or b) load the title itself without any thought process.

More Impressive

[MBCook]

What I find more impressive is that in the first week, more than 1 in 7 DS owners bought a copy. 15% of everyone who owned a DS bought one in the first week in the US. My understanding is that no game has ever sold that well after a system has launched.

The game caused the DS to outsell all other hardware COMBINED in Japan for quite a while. I wonder if it will do that here too.

Maturity

[AsiNisiMasa]

This puts to rest the argument that Nintendogs wouldn't appeal to the Western consumers, obsessed with 'mature' games.

I hope a lot of game developers are paying attention to this. I don't meant to say there's anything wrong with what anyone else does for fun, but I've had enough GTA for a lifetime. Between this and Katamari, I hope the industry will be pushed to make games complex enough for older audiences without the normally associated "adult" themes.
 
I don't mean to say the adult themes should disappear or that the light-hearted games don't exist. I just hope that sales of games like this cause a shift in the curretn ratio of quality light/dark themed games.