DS Design = Nintendo Profits

There's nothing but good news in Nintendo's world right now, as the success of the DS leads to a more profitable financial year than they'd initially expected. From the article: "The company has re-estimated a net profit of 95 billion yen ($807 million) for the year ended March 31, compared with its previous forecast of $637 million. Last year the firm took £739 million." To get an idea of why the DS is so successful, Gamespot has a breakdown of an interview with the DS Engineers.

Comments

Nintendo Deserves It

[dancingmad]

I live outside of Osaka and I got my DS Lite a few weeks after launch (by stumbiling across a late shipment at Tsutaya). I got mine on a Friday night at 10 p.m. or so and there was a shelf full of Lites and old DSes. By the next afternoon there was 1 old-model, silver left.

The machine is a marvel. It's sexy like an Apple machine (it matches my iBook and iPod) but far more durable. It's like Apple aesthetics combined with Nintendo's "make-sure-it-takes-a-beating" engineering (indeed, their machines have been amazingly resilient and the DS Lite is no exception.

The prices of Lites are coming down (you can get a used one for the same price as a new one these days) but they are still somewhat hard to find, especially in places like Akihabara (I was there on vacation a few weeks ago and every store said they were sold out) and Den-Den Town in Osaka. I live out in the boonies (compared to Osaka proper, anyway), so I was able to snag one.

The games are great - some great Japan only titles like Dragon Quest Slime 2 and Jump and stuff like Animal Crossing. People here love this machine. I am hoping the Revolution will have the same kind of success.