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10 Million Nintendo DS Units Sold Since Launch
DS Gamer writes "Nintendo has announced that worldwide sales of their twin-screen handheld console the Nintendo DS have reached the 10 million mark since its launch in the United States during late November 2004. The vast majority of sales have been in the United States (4 million) and Japan (5 million) where the DS became the fastest selling games machine of all time. From the Reuters article: 'It is on the upswing of its life cycle," Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing, told Reuters in a telephone interview. She declined to give a sales forecast but said the Japan-based company would provide additional information during its upcoming quarterly financial report. Kaplan added that Nintendo's seven-week-old Wi-Fi Connection wireless gaming service has had more than 550,000 unique visitors globally.'" Commentary is available on Forbes and Gamespot.
The online Mario Kart DS mode is incredibly fun and addictive. That in my mind is reason enough to own a DS.
For my money, the Nintendo DS has had the best signal to noise ratio, with regards to the quality of the games, of any system in its first year since the Dreamcast. Probably even better. I've been absolutely astonished at how often I keep coming back to this little guy, especially considering how dismal it was at launch. The games are really coming at a good pace now...it is hard for a guy with a WoW addiction to keep up.
It just occurred to me that having 2 screens and one touch sensitive one is an excellent way of avoiding someone creating a PSP emulator of the DS. Clever Nintento :)
;)
Maybe someone can create one for my Sony Ericsson P910i, which has a tall touch sentsitive screen.
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Nintendo, to me, has always focused more on fun, entertaining games for the entire family; mo other system has these fun games such as Mario Kart and Animal Crossing. Sony and Microsoft focus on the realistic and violence aspects moreso, leading to a system for more mature audiences. The thing is, Nintendo gets most of these games too. So, in the long run, any Nintendo system seems like a sure-bet for a better system. I'd take Mario Kart any day over Project Gotham Racing. Why? Because to me, its a whole lot more fun.
...And better developer support
I have developed games for the GBA, DS & have access to a PSP dev kit for which we have not developed a game yet
From the development point of view, NOA is a lot easier to deal with throughout the whole process (concept submission, feedback, testing & final approval) - Sony on the other hand almost makes the developer feel like they are doing them a favor by letting them develop for the PSP - the whole process is overly convoluted and a major pain in the ass...
4 million in Japan and 5 million in the US leaves just 1 million sales in the rest of the world, presumably mostly in Europe. In terms of market size, Europe is pretty big, I wonder why the DS sales are so much lower?
Here in Japan (Nagoya), I see DSes everywhere. Toy stores and department stores have big DS (and Gameboy) sections, but I've yet to notice any PSPs, though I suppose they must be tucked away somewhere. I also see a lot of kids carrying around DSes, but again, I've never even seen a PSP here. I did see a PSP subway ad once.
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It could simply be that the Wifi wasn't ready by the time the system launched and so they went with what they could do, Pictochat. That would be understandable. I do agree though that a built-in browser would be awesome. The touch screen could be used for the keyboard as well as clicking on links and such. Perhaps the top screen could show a zoomed-out view of the entire page while the bottom screen showed a 100% size view of a certain portion of it, with the ability to drag that portion with the touchscreen (like Google Maps). It could be quite interesting.
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As for the reverse engineering that you are talking about, I presume you are talking about Stephen Stair - http://www.akkit.org/dswifi/index.html
I believe that he currently has UDP/IP functioning and is working on getting TCP/IP to fuction correctly. Already people have made some simple applications for what is currently available, such as a program that transmits a file to the compact flash cards of several hardware products used for DS homebrew (Game Boy Advance Movie Player and the Supercard among others). There is also a (rather useless) program that replaces the keyboard when using mIRC, letting you type (but not receive) text into the channel from your DS. I believe there's also a program that allows chat between a PC and the DS. It's all rather interesting, and only time will tell how more advanced these programs will get. Hopefully, once TCP/IP is figured out correctly, a simple web browser can be created.
I also believe that there is a company that is creating an instant messenger cartridge for the DS. More info can be found at http://nintendoinsider.com/site/EEkuFAyluAHuhWnZn
The DS's numbers are impressive, but we aren't anywhere close to the peak of the system.
Great games like Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, and Nintendogs, and some interesting titles like Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney and XX-XY, have shown consumers that the touch screen is not a gimmick. If I recall correctly, NiFi already has half a million users, and that's after a month of NiFi. By comparison, doesn't XBox Live have a little over a million after at least a year?
There are still hot games coming to the DS to spur sales, too. The Pokemon series has consecutively been a hot seller, oftening bumping hardware unit sales with its release. Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, the first regular RPG entries to the series on the DS, is due out sometime this year. It has been confirmed that these games will use NiFi to trade Pokemon, chat, and, most importantly, battle. The trade-and-battle theme of Pokemon has screamed for MMO features, and the DS is the first machine equipped and ready to take the charge. (This will be the game that gets me to buy a DS.)
If Pokemon is not your thing, you're not out of luck. Metroid Prime: Hunters, the much delayed multiplayer FPS, might be right up your alley. The Metroid Prime series has had strong sales, and when this game finally releases, it's going to boost sales (sorry for the pun) once again. (I'm uncertain, but I believe part of the delay was to add NiFi to MP:H).
And remember, we're still waiting for a Zelda game. While one has been confirmed in process, no details have been released. Did someone say Twilight Princess followup?
It's successes like this that allow Nintendo to go to the edge with new ideas like the Revolution.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a fanboy, and my rantings may be taken as such.
If he doesn't care much about the quality of the picture.. Gameboy Movie Player
Buy a $10 card-reader and a $50 gigabyte (hell, buy two) compact flash card, and you've got 3 movies, lots of music (as long as you don't care too much about the quality of that music) customizable interfaces, e-reader, image viewer, AND a NES emulator (kinda sucks, only supports roms under 200k) for your Nintendo GBA/DS.
The player comes with DVD ripping software and converter for Movies, images, and music. But if you're lazy like me...
GBA film, a Chinese DVD to GBA format site. Has a ton of movies to peruse, Most have subtitles, but the American native ones are in the original english.
Switching from Movies to Old school Mario to new school Mario Kart DS have made those long flights almost bearable.
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Alot of people ague to me that 'Yes, the DS may have good games, but the PSP can play DVDs!' which annoys me as, if you buy a DS you can afford to buy a small travel DVD player with built in screen, that will play DVDs, unlike the PSP, which only plays UMDs. People don't seem to realise that the PSP is a little small to fit a DVD in. I even have GBAMP, 2 x 512 compact flash cards and FlashMe and am using moonshell to watch video and listen to music on my DS. And with Advance Wars and Mario Kart. It's a much better console games-wise. The PSP has only two advantages. Better Screen, Better Graphics. And, To be honest, I like having two screens without any dead pixels, and with the gameplay of the DS, I don't care about the graphics either.
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I think it depends on what your definition of "successful" is.
If you were to base it on net profits, then Nintendo is the one and only successful video game company compared to Sony, MSFT, Sega, Nokia...
Now, if you were to consider the definition based on the mindset of the dorks down at EbGames, then I would agree with you.
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