Wii, DS, Not Cannibals

Nintendo President Iwata, GameSpot reports, has stated that the Wii and the DS are not 'eating' each other. That is to say, the Wii's brisk sales reports have not harmed the high demand for Nintendo's portable system. From the article: "'Some analysts say the largest rival of the Wii is the DS,' he told the Reuters news service. 'But if you take a look at DS sales in the United States in the Thanksgiving week or DS sales in Japan in the week of the Wii launch, there has been little impact.' By the end of its fiscal year on March 31, 2007, Nintendo now believes it will have sold 6 million Wiis and 20 million combined units of the DS and DS Lite. It currently predicts its annual profit will total 145 billion yen (around $1.26 billion), an increase of more than 60 percent, with annual sales rising 45 percent to 740 billion yen (approximately $6.44 billion). "

Comments

Nintendo

[jrwr00]

Why would it matter? they are both Nintendo products....so the money is going to the same place. am i not right?

Re:Nintendo

[heinousjay]

This is a fine example of framing the debate. The marketing department of Nintendo is attempting (and succeeding? I can't tell) to paint themselves as having only to compete with themselves. It's just part of they overall strategy they've been executing for the last several years.

Re:Nintendo

[glowingsnowball]

If the Wii had no effect on the DS sales then Nintendo is making more money which is the point of the article. As far as the war between the DS and the PSP the French put up more of a fight in WWII. GameBoy has taught Nintendo alot. The original was the single worst hand-held of its time as far as graphics and hardware go. It did so well because of the games. Sony didn't learn its leason. Who wants to play crappy games in HD( if you spend the extra money to get the cable and an HD TV)? Nintendo's about fun Mircosoft is about power Sony is about 3rd place.

Re:Nintendo

[sebi]

GameBoy has taught Nintendo alot. The original was the single worst hand-held of its time as far as graphics and hardware go. It did so well because of the games.

The batteries lasted forever, but yeah, whatever ...

Re:Nintendo

[TomHandy]

You know, that's not exactly fair, to say the original gameboy was the "single worst hand-held of its time". One thing to remember is that the GameBoy was pretty groundbreaking when it first came out. Prior to the gameboy, hand-held gaming was primarily stuff like Nintendo's Game & Watch stuff, those Tiger Electronics single game LCD handhelds, etc. As a kid, I remember just the idea of having cartridges to swap out to be able to play different games was pretty cool, and the graphics were certainly an improvement over LCD games where everything was "fixed".

The rest of your point is of course accurate, but it also wasn't "just" games. The GameGear, for example, was something that people said "oh, it's so superior to the gameboy; it has color, a backlit screen, more powerful hardware, etc.". But the GameGear also had terrible battery life, and the screen quality wasn't all that great and tended to have a lot of problems with ghosting and appearing washed out. I never did play a TurboGrafix Express or Atari Lynx, but I recall hearing they also had similar issues. And of course, the GameBoy's huge game library helped a lot too.

Nintendo has been criticized to some degree for being "behind the times" with the GameBoy/GBC/GBA/DS/etc. compared to its competition, and certainly from a pure technical point, there have often been more superior devices out there. But I think Nintendo has generally had a tendency to wait until they can really perfect something before they put it out there. So, for example, the original GBA launched without backlighting, but the GBA SP finally did add it in, and pretty well (and Nintendo has continued to make improvements to backlighting quality) and without the huge sacrifice in battery life.

I think the current "battle" between the DS and PSP also highlights another, newer factor in this competition. The approach of the PSP really seems to be, for the most part, to offer a true "portable" PlayStation experience, with the main selling point being that you can play the exact same kinds of games as you would on your console at home.

But what has really been shown here is that, to some degree, the games people want to play on a console at home aren't always the games they want to play on a handheld. I think Nintendo has a really good grasp on what a lot of people actually use a handheld gaming device for.

You often hear people now say that the PSP's problem is "no good games", but I don't think this is necessarily it. I own both a DS and PSP, and actually have a fair number of games for both. And they actually have been putting out some really nice PSP games, and lately I've been enjoying Syphon Filter Dark Mirror and Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth and even Tekken: Dark Resurrection. But the thing is, I play these games at home most of the time, and I treat them more like "console games". I don't carry my PSP around with me and play them for a few minutes or something like that while I'm waiting for something. So I don't think it's that the PSP doesn't have "good games"; it has some great games. It's just that it has a lot of games that aren't necessarily well suited for "on the go" gaming.

To be fair, there are also DS games I use like that too........ Advance Wars, for example, isn't a game I normally just play "on the go". But I think this is the fundamental issue with the PSP right now.

Re:Nintendo

[blixel]

In theory, yes. In practice, it's better to sell 1 million DS and 1 million Wii consoles than selling 1/2 million of each.

Duh ... 1m + 1m = 2m

.5m + .5m = 1m

2 million is more than 1 million, so of course it's better to sell 2 million units.

But whether you sell 2 million Wii's and 0 DS's, or 2 million DS's and 0 Wii's is still important due to manufacturing costs. Consoles are generally sold at a loss when they are first released. I believe Nintendo actually makes money on DS sells. Plus there is the whole business economic benefit of being involved in multiple markets because of people (like me) who aren't really interested in consoles, but are interested in handheld gaming.

Re:Nintendo

[antifoidulus]

I wouldn't exactly call it a trouncing. according to this article by years end the DS(all versions) should sold about 8.3 million units, the PSP 6.5 million. Now granted that number is 80% of the DS number so they aren't leading(in console units sold), however I wouldn't label that a failure.

Re:Nintendo

[MrCopilot]

Consoles are generally sold at a loss when they are first released.

You mean OTHER consoles are generally sold at a loss. Nintendo does not operate this way. They make money or they don't sell it.

Those wacky japanese businessmen.

Re:Nintendo

[matthewcharles2006]

Nintendo does not sell consoles at a loss. The Wii in particular likely has a huge profit margin. I wouldn't be surprised if the Wii profit margin was larger than the retail cost of a DS.

Re:Nintendo

[retsaMedoC]

Actually, Microsoft and Sony sell their consoles at a loss.

It has been stated several places (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060915-775 2.html) that Nintendo is not selling the Wii or any of it's accessories (the remotes, nunchucks, etc) at a loss. They make profit on everything they sell.

Re:Nintendo

[blixel]

GameBoy has taught Nintendo alot. The original was the single worst hand-held of its time as far as graphics and hardware go.

I don't know about that. I had a GameBoy and later on I got a Sega gamegear. I thought the Sega would be so much better because it had a color screen and better graphics. But the hardware just wasn't good enough at the time. I remember playing Sonic on my gamegear and it was just a perpetual blur of colors. The LCD didn't update fast enough. When you were standing still, it looked fine, but with Sonic you spend very little time standing in one place. Plus, I quickly found out that I needed to carry a backpack full of extra batteries around with me because the gamegear ate through batteries like crazy.

So ... I really don't think the original GameBoy's hardware was all that bad. It was a combination of the most efficient and practical hardware that was available at the time. The Sega gamegear and the Atari Lynx were just crappy technology hardware demos of what handheld gaming *could be like* when the hardware technology caught up. Which took 10+ years. It wasn't until the GameBoy Advance SP that colored, backlit handheld gaming became practical.

Currently, my favorite gaming "system" is my GameBoy Advance SP. (The new model with the improved screen. The original GBA SP was cool, but the new model with the better screen is *sooo* much better.) I have an original Nintendo DS, and 2 Nintendo DS Lites and I still lean towards my GameBoy Advance SP. The first Nintendo DS was pretty lousy in my opinion. The screen wasn't very good and the design was kinda awful. The DS Lite was a *huge* improvement. The DS Lite screen is as good as (as vibrant, as bright, as rich) as the GBA SP's screen - possibly even better than the GBA SP. But for portable gaming, the GBA SP is a little better in my opinion. It's smaller and lighter and more comfortable in the hands.

Re:Nintendo

[Scyber]

According to that same article, the DS is expected to sell 4.5 million this year compared to 2.9 million for the PSP. Which means the DS will sell 50% more this year. If you also factor in the sales of the GBA this year (3.1 million) it begins to look like a trouncing.

Re:Nintendo

[Don853]

Those wacky japanese businessmen.

As opposed to.... Sony?

Re:Nintendo

[glowingsnowball]

I do agree it was harsh to call it "worst hand-held ever" but you took that right out of context. I said as far as hardware went. The game gear did eat batteries like no other but was better hardware. As far as the psp playing like a console it plays like an outdated console. They Jam as many polygons in as they can and it looks worse then the PS1. Gameboy wasn't always about being on the go either. I played alot of gameboy games at home with an ac adapter and a snake light. Nintendo knows its limits. Mario 4X4 is crisp and looks good. The thing that bothers me is Nintendo is always been called "childish" compared to Sony and MS. When the truth is Mario makes games more fun. Jak and daxter and Ratchet and clank are Sonys answer to Mario style games. I guess fun games are childish.

Re:Nintendo

[blixel]

You mean OTHER consoles are generally sold at a loss. Nintendo does not operate this way. They make money or they don't sell it.

Thanks to all 3 of you who pointed this out. I wasn't aware of this fact.

I know Nintendo doesn't make huge financial gambles like Microsoft and Sony does, but I just assumed their consoles were sold at a loss (at least a small loss) when they were new. I know manufacturing costs go down over time. I remember reading about how Microsoft calculated that into their Xbox sells. The first X million units sold at some % of loss. The next X million units would still sell at a loss, but the % would be lower. Eventually the Xbox would be break even. And if it lasted long enough, they would eventually profit on the hardware sell of the Xbox. I just assumed that kind of thinking was the norm in the console business in modern times and that Nintendo did the same thing, but on a smaller scale of profit loss and with a faster turn around out of the red.

Re:Nintendo

[Thraxen]

Good post, but to be fair, the original Gameboy had a lot of ghosting too and it's hard to complain about a bit of washout when comparing it to a greyscale screen. I think the biggest issues were price, battery life, and the amount of software. The GameGear had a few really good games, but the Gameboy had a lot more games.

Re:Nintendo

[antifoidulus]

How much of that was because of the release of the DS Lite though?

Re:Nintendo

[glowingsnowball]

Not about the handheld itself at all. Its also about the games that sell. So Look here noob. http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/npd/ds-nearly-triples -psp-sales-in-september-211294.php

Re:Nintendo

[the dark hero]

The batteries lasted forever because you had to put in like 18 at a time! Plus, if you think about it, Tetris couldn't have been that taxing on the system. :P Ah, how i miss my original Tetris Box.

Re:Nintendo

[Headcase88]

Also, the PSP is more expensive. In terms of revenue, more money has been spent buying PSPs than DS Lites. Profit... not so much.

Anyone have reliable attach rate numbers for the DS and PSP? I reckon the DS's is higher, but that's probably on account of my fanboyism.

Anyway, in my opinion the PSP really has a lot less going for it in terms of games and cost and such compared to... anything. IMO the fact that it has so many sales is a testament to the selling power of the Playstation brand name. (That or because it looks cool)

Re:Nintendo

[Wdomburg]

Those numbers appear to be in the United States only. Sony currently quotes 22.94 million units shipped as of 2006-09-30 on their website. Nintendo currently quotes 26.82 million units sold. Not too shabby in the "to date" department, though Sony only reports shipments and not sales, which skews the numbers in their favour.

Looking at current retail sales reports paints a much grimmer picture for Sony, though. The latest figures that have been released have DS & DS Lite sales outpacing PSP 2:1 in the American and European markets and 5:1 in the Japanese market.

Even just looking at the article you quoted, notice that the sames of the GBA, Nintendo's last generation system, are higher than the PSP. Not a particularly good trend.

Re:Nintendo

[ProppaT]

No more batteries than the Game Gear, Lynx, or the infamous Sega Nomad which got on average an hour and a half life on a set of 4 AA's. At least I think it was 4, could have been 6 or 8. The system was a brick, although I'm still not complaining about having a portable Genesis.

Re:Nintendo

[KDR_11k]

Wait, there was Half Life for the Nomad?

Re:Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that the four colours you could choose from on the original Gameboy were varying shades of snot green, I think the original analysis applies.

Re:Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. If Sony came out with a PSPFun - a handheld that actually played fun games, how much would that blow away the DS Lite sales?

Re:Nintendo

[typobox43]

Game Gear was six. Utterly ridiculous for the battery life it got.

Re:Nintendo

[bulled]

If you'd been following this you would know that Nintendo is the only one of the three to make money on their new console.

Re:Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

Those wacky japanese businessmen.

As opposed to.... Sony?

I think too many of them went to American MBA schools.

Re:Nintendo

[DesireCampbell]

The Game Gear had 6, the original Gameboy had 4, and the GB Pocket, Colour, and Advance used 2.

Re:Nintendo

[drinkypoo]

I think the Nomad used six AAs. I can't remember for sure because I got rid of mine when I found out that it wouldn't play the best genesis game ever, forgotten worlds (which is a fairly great arcade port for its time even if it does leave out two levels.) You can only play sonic spinball so many times... I know for sure, though, that it sucked those batteries down in NO TIME AT ALL. Which was another good reason to get rid of it. Now, if I'd had a Turbo Express, I'd probably have kept that.

Re:Nintendo

[abaddononion]

To be fair, though, last I heard the GBA:SP is actually still out-selling the DS, as well. In fact, I think the SP is one of the most beautiful handheld systems ever made, the backwards compatibility is awesome, and I plan on buying one soon. The DS and PSP both I could care less about.

Re:Nintendo

[NoTheory]

Well, if it makes a difference, Sony's current CEO is a British born, US citizen. So if you wanted to be technical about it, their leadership currently is not in fact Japanese.

Re:Nintendo

[CronoCloud]

I don't carry my PSP around with me and play them for a few minutes or something like that while I'm waiting for something. So I don't think it's that the PSP doesn't have "good games"; it has some great games. It's just that it has a lot of games that aren't necessarily well suited for "on the go" gaming.

Doesn't the sleep function make a difference in that? There's no need to worry about having to save or lose progress when you can just sleep the thing.

I carry mine around, it's easier in cooler weather with jacket pockets. I use it for all sorts of things and the built in web browser is a godsend.

Re:Nintendo

[blixel]

If you'd been following this...

And if you had read the posts by the three people who pointed this out before you...

Re:Nintendo

[marshallbanana6]

Yeah, unless you want to umm... play DS games?

Re:Nintendo

[Wdomburg]

According to Nintendo's last financial statement, from April to September the GBA sold 1.66M units (including 1.56M SPs) and the DS sold 10.09M units (including 8.48M Lites).

Current sales figures out of Japan are even more tilted. Latest week I could find there were 201,378 DS Lites sold and only
2526 GBAs of any flavour (including SP and Micro).

Re:Nintendo

[bulled]

Actually due to post-lag or however they bill it, those posts were not present when I started my reply...

Re:Nintendo

[justchris]

Actually that thinking was pretty much started by Microsoft. There are, unfortunately, no reliable records, but the PS2 was proven to break even at launch. The n64, GC, PS1 & DC all sold for a profit on launch. It's possible the Saturn was sold for a loss, but, again, no reliable information there.

Now, to be totally, horribly pedantic about it, at one time the GC was sold for a loss. When Nintendo first reduced the price to $99, they were selling it at a loss for about a month before cost reduction on the hardware caught up. That has probably happened to other consoles that reduced prices quickly for competitive reasons (certainly in the case of the DC), but so far we only know of 3 consoles for sure that were sold at a loss at the begging of their lifespan, the Xbox, the Xbox 360 & the PS3.

Re:Nintendo

[TomHandy]

The sleep function helps to some degree, but it's not so much that I'm worried about losing progress, etc. as much as that most of the games I play on the PSP are really ones I play for a more significant period of time. I mean, for example, if I'm playing Valkyrie Profile Lenneth, I'm normally not planning on just turning my PSP on and playing it for 10 minutes while waiting for something, etc.

Again, this is true for me with some DS games too. It's not really a knock on either of these systems, just what I'm looking for in terms of games "on the go". Ultimately I use my PSP more just when I'm at home and want to play a PSP specific game, but the "portability" factor just doesn't come into play for me.

This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford is

[kinglink]

Yamaha, or some other motorcycle company. It's not. If you're going to get a motorcycle you're going to get a yamaha, if you want a truck/car you get a ford. If you need both, you'll get a ford and a yamaha.

The only person that the DS and the Wii competes over is the guy who is only going to buy 1 system or handheld. And in the past the DS was competing with the PSP for that anyways (and winning for the most part).

Yes they are, at least the DS is...

[jimstapleton]

I got a black DS, and my fugly polar white mysteriously dissapeared afterwards...

Course, that could be because the polar white was bought from me, but I prefer to think of the the cannibalism aspect. One DS munching on another is kinda funny...

Re:Yes they are, at least the DS is...

[Lane.exe]

It's a shame that your home is housing black-on-white crime. Can't you teach your electronics about tolerance?

Re:Yes they are, at least the DS is...

[jimstapleton]

Oh man, I never thought about that problem... Crud...

Oh well, I think we should start by teaching some mods the difference between "troll" and "bad humor". Overrated? Sure! Troll? WTF!?

Re:Yes they are, at least the DS is...

[Chris Burke]

You know what they say -- you can't teach an old console new tricks, without a mod chip.

Re:Yes they are, at least the DS is...

[Lane.exe]

Troll? Really? I thought it was funny. Oh well.

I think we'd be better off inventing a <sarcasm> tag.

Duh?

[ereshiere]

One attaches to your TV, the other you can take anywhere. The Gameboy didn't do this to the NES when it came out 20 years ago, so why should anyone think this now?

Re:Duh?

[ack154]

so why should anyone think this now?

Because "some analysts" are apparently retarded.

Re:Duh?

[richdun]

Some? That's generous.

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[DreadPiratePizz]

Not nessesarily. I clearly remember as a kid my parents telling me "You can get a Genesis, OR a GameGear, but not both".

quite the pickle

[The Other White Boy]

So basically they're saying Nintendo's biggest problem is mom and dad not being able to get a Wii for the family, and instead buying x number of DSes for each of the kids?

I wish I had these kinda problems!

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[smbarbour]

No, if I was going to buy anything from Yamaha, it would be a clarinet. If I wanted a motorcycle, I'd go Harley-Davidson. If I wanted a crotch rocket, then I might consider Yamaha briefly before I came to my senses and bought a motorcycle instead.

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[aesiamun]

http://www.starmotorcycles.com/star/overview_byo.a spx

Do these look like crotch rockets? I'd buy a harley if I wanted an overpriced motorcycle...or I'd look elsewhere if I wasn't bleeding money from my anus.

English Got Cannibalized...

[__aaclcg7560]

Wii, DS, Not Cannibals

Wii And DS Are Not Cannibals

(But they should be eating Microsoft and Sony's lunch!)

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[UbuntuDupe]

And it's not using "cannibal" correctly. A cannibal is something that eats is own type. (Btw, ever fed pork to pigs or chicken to pigeons?) The question is not whether the Wii "eats Wiis", but whether the Wii "eats DS's" and vice versa. A better metaphor would be to ask if the Wii and DS are "type A and B Deftera".

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[Control Group]

In this instance, consider "cannibal" a term of art: it has a specific meaning within marketing, and this is it. A product "cannibalizes" another product if both products are sold by the same company, and product A removes sales from product B. It would be entirely correct, for example, to say that Country Time Lemonade cannibalizes Sprite if, in fact, an increase in sales of Country Time leads to a decrease in sales of Sprite (I believe both are owned by Pepsico, if not, pretend they are for the purposes of this example).

So in fact, this use of the term "cannibal" is appropriate.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[Skidge]

Don't you know that typesetting is very expensive? Slashdot pays by the letter.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[Aladrin]

They are the same 'type'. They are both products of Nintendo. If Nintendo's product A kills sales from Nintendo's Product B, it's 'cannibalizing it.'

In fact, they're not just both product, but video game systems. The only difference is that one is hand-held, and the other is not.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[The-Bus]

(But they should be eating Microsoft and Sony's lunch!) They did. And then they threw up.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[Anonymous Coward]

"(Btw, ever fed pork to pigs or chicken to pigeons?)"

Pigeons eating chicken is not cannibalism. Just because they're both birds doesn't make it cannibalism. That'd mean eating meat which comes from another mammal is cannibalism. Or when a snake eats a lizard, it's cannibalism.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[NinjaFarmer]

I don't know which is sadder... whether I actually agree with your reasoning or that I would like to see Country Time lemonade take over Sprite sales because I own stock in Pepsico and not Coca Cola.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[hal2814]

The soft drink industry is probably one of the worst places you could attempt such an example due to the convoluted nature of product ownership.

Country Time is owned by Dr Pepper/7UP who is in turn owned by Cadbury Schweppes. It's always hard to tell if a product is Cadbury Schweppes since they don't bottles their own beverages. Sometimes a Coca-Cola bottler will bottle them, sometimes a Pepsi bottler, and sometimes someone else entirely will bottle them based on the area. The nearest Pepsi equivalent would be Sierra Mist (Sprite is owned by Coca-Cola). In fact, Sierra Mist came about because Pepsi wanted to hock their own product in the lemon-lime cola segment to replace the distribution deal they had with 7UP. Does Sierra Mist cannibalize 7UP sales? In the bottlers' views maybe but not in Pepsico or Cadbury's view.

Re:English Got Cannibalized...

[Lectrik]

And it's not using "cannibal" correctly. A cannibal is something that eats is own type. (Btw, ever fed pork to pigs or chicken to pigeons?) The question is not whether the Wii "eats Wiis", but whether the Wii "eats DS's" and vice versa. A better metaphor would be to ask if the Wii and DS are "type A and B Deftera".

I think the metaphor works rather well. You just have to consider them seperate genders. The Wii being male because it's larger... and called Wii. And the DS being female because it's smaller, you can take it places, and it's fun to poke, not to mention it has a pair of things to stare at.

Batteries

[Millennium]

Honestly, I think this is the one thing Nintendo has understood about portable systems that nobody else has ever been able to figure out:

If the batteries are dead, then it doesn't matter how awesome your graphics are, how l33t your processor is, or even how good your games are: your system is an expensive brick. It seems like such a small thing, but poor battery life can bring even the greatest system to its knees. None of Nintendo's competitors seem to have understood this, and in the end they've all suffered for it.

Re:Batteries

[_Hiro_]

Atari figured this out with the Lynx, but a bit too late. When the re-vamp of the hardware (a.k.a. Lynx II) came out, they bumped the battery life up from 4 to 6 hours. Still not in league with the Game Boy, but far better than the Game Gear. Compare that to the PSP (with a higher-capacity battery) that still only lasts 3-5 hours...

I still can't believe how long I get out of a charge of the GBA:SP, though. I can play during lunch at work and before class at night for a whole week without the low warning lighting up. Very efficient.

Re:Batteries

[fbjon]

..and if you turn the backlight off, it'll last forever. I recharged my cell phone more often!

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[Der PC]

Nope, I won't get a Yamaha.

It's either Piaggio or BMW.

And BMWs most fierce competition could easily be BMW ( they do produce both quality cars and quality motorcycles ;) )

Re:Duh? Clueless Analysts

[Anonymous Coward]

Analysts are clueless. Where do they find/enlist these people? In fact, whether IT (think of Gartner) or the the console industry, if you invest counter to what these folks would suggest, I think you would do quite well.

I mentioned this on another site

[killmenow]

So I'll say it again here: I reserved a Wii and got one on launch day. For Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa are buying two DS lites (one each for my daughter and eldest son). Add in the games (4-5 Wii games + 4 [2 each] DS games) and accessories (2nd and 3rd Wiimotes and nunchuks, Wii points cards, personalized Wiimote gloves, etc.) and Nintendo is making a mint off my family alone. But, no, the Wii is not negatively affecting DS Lite sales. Frankly, I want a DS Lite more now that I have the Wii. Every indication is Nintendo will offer integrations that make it very compelling to have both.

Maybe it's just early...

[7Prime]

But I read that as "Wii, DS, Not Cannabis"

Re:Maybe it's just early...

[brkello]

Don't feel bad. I read it the same. I actually was trying to draw some strange analogy to how pot makes your hungry and this was somehow causing the Wii and the DS to eat each other. Unfortunately, reading the title correctly doesn't make much sense either (as others have pointed out).

Re:Maybe it's just early...

[epgandalf]

I read it like that too. It looks like Wiid (weed) if you're reading it quickly. Several times I've heard people say Wii and I thought I heard weed, so they were kind of linked in my mind.

Re:Maybe it's just early...

[Dorceon]

You really read it that way? What were you smoking.
...oh, right.

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[MindStalker]

Ahh the days of old when we didn't HAVE to buy every consumer product out there. HAHA how silly and out of debt we were...

If my family is any example...

[Rachel Lucid]

My Sister went for the DS for the games. She's been playing since the SuperNES (and had a GameGear), but had migrated to PC games up until the DS. The reason? The DS's games require less involved play, and the genres she likes don't show up on home consoles, at least not without a crappy port.

My brother, on the other hand, is an avoid sports fan and is likely to stick with Sony regardless of anything else, as long as he can actually GET one, because he's addicted to his football. He wants a PS3, but because he can't get it and the PS2 is (preusmably) borked right now, he's on his PSP.

Me? I stick to the DS a) Because the only game I even knew was out and liked for the PSP was Daxter, and b) a 'true' console for me is useless while I'm at college. If I want the XBOX 360, it's in the school's arcade, and if I want anything else, it's at the local frat house. The DS makes SENSE for me.

Sure, they're two different markets, and they can't really compete with each other, unless by 'competition' you mean the second-console market. Anything else is crazy talk.

So...

[aztektum]

Nintendo is expecting a 60% increase in profits for the year...

Meanwhile MS and Sony are trying to keep from digging themselves too big a hole with their video game divisions.

Who is the real "winner."

Re:So...

[brkello]

The real winner is consumers since they have lots of choices...but I am sure that isn't what you are going for.

I don't think Sony is doing that bad. The PS2 and games for it are selling really well. MS, well, the 360 is poised to get some JRPGs which might allow it to hit the 10 million mark which is a good number to encourage third party development. So right now, everyone is winning, just to different degrees.

Re:So...

[Dorceon]

Sony and Microsoft's games divisions have dug such debt holes that it will take a long string of profitable quarters to make it all back. Nintendo has never had an unprofitable quarter in its 100+ year history. I think that's what he was really getting at.

Re:So...

[mgblst]

The short term, clearly nintendo, according to your in-depth analysis.

The longer term is more questionable, and harder to make simple statements about.

I see that you are a short term sort of person, living for the moment, no savings account or pension for you. Good luck with that.

Sony clearly has a long term strategy, the PS3 is probably so powerful that it could have been released in a couple of years and still be out in front graphically. And it would be a lot cheaper. It seems that this is when Sony are expecting sales to take off, and they can start making some money. So they had the option, release it in a couple of years for a reasonable price, or release it now, at an expensive price, draw in some early comers, and then reduce the price when they can start to make it cheaper in a couple of years.

IS this concept really so complex, that you and your ilk have trouble understand it.

Sure the DS is selling well!

[zeromusmog]

You need SOMETHING to do while waiting 12+ hours in line to buy a Wii!

Re:Sure the DS is selling well!

[nhaines]

Hey!

I didn't make you come with me. ;)

... I didn't make you leave home Mario Kart, Tetris DS, and Animal Crossing, either. What were you thinking? :P

4 (non-game) Reasons Nintendo rules portables...

[trdrstv]

The batteries lasted forever because you had to put in like 18 at a time!

I know that's supposed to be sarcasm, but The original Gameboy took 4, and lasted 10 hours or better. The best any competitor could manage was 6 hours. Nintendo had 4 basic rules about making the Handheld the other handhelds didn't get. Obviously the Games are the reason to buy it, but from an Engineering standpoint Nintendo's handhelds have always had 4 things going for it:

1) Make it portable. - Atari Lynx had a commercial showing a child pulling it out of a backpack. Why? Because he needed to. A portable needs to fit inside a coat pocket so it's always accessable.

2) Make it affordable. - Every Handheld system pre-DS sold for $99.99 USD or less. Nintendo is in the business of selling games, not systems. Keep the system price low, so more people can buy your games.

3) Make it last a day. - A reasonable amount of Battery Life is required or Customers get angry. The Sweet spot is at 10 hours or more.

4) Make it durable. - Handhelds suffer more, and accidents happen. Their systems have been outright abused and they still work. There is actually an original GameBoy on display at Nintendo World in NYC that was in the Gulf War. It's half melted (Including searing the cartridge to the unit) but still will play Tetris. As long as a customer has a working system they can buy, and play your games.

Can work together

[Midnight Thunder]

One attaches to your TV, the other you can take anywhere. The Gameboy didn't do this to the NES when it came out 20 years ago, so why should anyone think this now?

Not to mention that they have the potential of working together. They both support Wi-Fi and I believe Nintendo was planning to have some games which got both working together.

Not Cannabis?

[SevenHands]

Am I the only one who read this title as "Weed, DS, Not Cannabis"

Re:4 (non-game) Reasons Nintendo rules portables..

[Thansal]

Make it durable. - Handhelds suffer more, and accidents happen. Their systems have been outright abused and they still work. There is actually an original GameBoy on display at Nintendo World in NYC that was in the Gulf War. It's half melted (Including searing the cartridge to the unit) but still will play Tetris. As long as a customer has a working system they can buy, and play your games.

I will vouch for this. It is awsome to see it. The system is horribly messed up during a bombing of the baracks it was in, but the screen is still (mostly) intact and they have it plugged into an AC adapter to have it run tetris. (Blog with a picture of it)

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[Anonymous Coward]

I was getting on my Hayabusa one day and some guy came up and said I should consider a Harley, because of their "stompin' torque" and they hold their value for a long time. And they're off the line before the 600cc sport riders are spooling up their engines. He did concede that my bike's underseat storage was a nice feature.

No fucking thanks, pal.

One leads to the other

[DigitalCrackPipe]

At least 4 DS units were sold that day to the 28 people where I was waiting in line for opening-day sales of the Wii. So, sales of one can lead to sales of the other.

GameGear Screen

[LKM]

I own all the three systems - a Lynx, an original GB and a GameGear. All in all, the GameGear's screen is the worst, and the Lynx's is the best. The GameGear has an incredibly "laggy" screen - faster games like Sonic are virtually unplayable. The GB is at least playable. The Lynx got it right - color *and* a pretty responsive screen. Even fast plays look pretty good.

Re:GameGear Screen

[Thraxen]

I never owned a Lynx myself, but did have a friend that had one. I do remember the motion blur on games like Sonic, but never had a problem with it for most games. I did finish Sonic just fine though. The motion blur on the GB was pretty bad too though, but it didn't have any games that moved as fast as Sonic so I'm not sure that it didn't have as much motion blur as the GG.

Re:GameGear Screen

[LKM]

The motion blur on the GB was pretty bad too though, but it didn't have any games that moved as fast as Sonic so I'm not sure that it didn't have as much motion blur as the GG.

That may be true. There were very few "fast" GB games, and the ones that seemed fast usually only pretended to be fast - the F1 racing game, for example.

Re:GameGear Screen

[PyroMosh]

Lynx was an Atari handheld. Why would Sonic, A Sega property, have been on it? Some kind of emulation? Perhaps you're just remembering wrong? If it really happened, I'm cusrious to know the details.

not what?

[Daetrin]

I could have sworn when i first saw the title that it said "Wii, DS, not Cannabis"

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[LKM]

Let me guess: You're a hardware geek who likes to fix broken computers and bikes :-)

Because...

[LKM]

Nintendo isn't so much informing us as framing the debate. They're basically saying "the DS is so successfull that only the Wii could possibly be a threat."

Cannabis??

[yasny_jp]

Anyone else read the headline as "Wii, DS, Not Cannabis"? I really think I need a siesta after lunch; my brain just stops working.

Re:This is like saying the biggest rival to Ford i

[aesiamun]

I am capable of fixing cars, bikes, etc...so yeah.

Yamaha motorcycles have been in my family since at least the late 70's and they haven't been problematic much at all.

nope

[Anonymous Coward]

I waited in line to get a Wii, and one of the people there in line with me went in the store hours before the Wii went on sale to... buy a DS so he could play wirelessly with everyone else who brought theirs. I don't think the Wii and DS are hurting each other.