35 Million DSes Sold, 6 Million Wiis By End of March 146
Wowzer writes "Nintendo just announced its quarterly sales for the end of 2006. Sales for the 9 months were up 72%, while net income was up 43%. From the article: '[There will be] worldwide shipments of 6 million Wii systems by the end of March 2007. Nintendo has sold 35 million DS and DS Lite to date ... As for the next fiscal year, Nintendo expect to sell around 23 million DS Lites, bringing the estimated total of DS units to 58 million by March 31, 2008.' New Super Mario Bros. seems to have legs of its own with 8.64 million copies sold worldwide and continued strong sales. But they seem slow to ship out those Wii with 4 million manufactured last year and 810,000 of those not arriving to stores until now."
I still can't get a Wii ! (Score:5, Interesting)
(For the record, this will be my first gaming system since the original NES, which I played as a kid.)
I'm looking forward to Wii Sports as a fun way to get my somewhat rounded body back into shape. Guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer. That or stop eating junk food.)
Re:I still can't get a Wii ! (Score:4, Interesting)
DS sells out in April (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think the DS is hard to find now (apparently, it's hard to keep in stock, just like the Wii), just wait until April. April sees the release of Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. The Pokemon series has always been a huge seller for both the games and the Game Boy, but these DS games also include the functionality to use WiFi to battle and trade online. Battling and trading with friends has always been a staple of the game, but you'd have to physically find someone to battle/trade with first. Now you have the entire world to choose from.
I know that's when I'll be buying my DS. (Well, a bit earlier, to beat the rush.)
Re:I still can't get a Wii ! (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, nothing for the Wii yet seems to be targeted toward exercise. There's a set of minigames on Rayman that are labled "workout", and they require moving as fast as possible with your arms, but they are kind of awkward and not really feasible for regular exercise.
I've been hoping for some game that involves you holstering a Wiimote into your legs, or legs and arms and then exploits the motion sensing and possibly also a dance pad, but haven't seen any plans for such a game. Any news on the homebrew side?
I love the Wii, but they're missing out on one of its uses.
Re:Kind of makes you wish Nintendo had vision (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not because of marketing, Sony is no slouch there, nor because there aren't people loyal to Sony's platform. Sony's product simply makes it difficult to be loyal. Why do people want to re-buy their DVDs in a low res medium they can only play on the handheld, with no TV output, especially when Sony wants people to buy movies again in the high def Blu-Ray now? If the DS utilized UMD, I doubt it would be as small nor have the same battery life as the DS light. The media would be larger as well. Handhelds get carried around, sometimes on long trips, and these factors can be important. My wife and I used our DS systems on our last trip to Japan and had no worries about battery life on either ~11 hour flight - nor the extra connecting flights in Narita. No problems fitting both DS systems and all our games in carry-on luggage.
We picked up a bit of software for the DS in Japan as well, including DQM:Joker, a Japanese dictionary application for myself that uses the stylus to recognize input Japanese characters, and an English TOEIC training game for my wife. We also left a game from the US for my brother-in-law's kids. The lack of region coding (this even extends to the AC adapters between the US and Japan, both unlike the Wii unfortunately) in the DS systems makes it ideal for our usage. Not sure about the PSP, perhaps it also has no region encoding, but it felt good to not have to worry about regions.
Re:4 million confusion (Score:3, Interesting)
From what other responders have said, the DSLite remains sold out even as we approach its first birthday. Were the Wii to duplicate that kind of demand, it's only criticism could likely be Nintendo's failure to provide adaquate supply.
I sincerely hope they can meet demand sooner rather than later. Eventually some rather beautiful and stunning games will come out for the PS3 and 360, and if Nintendo doesn't match those in a timely fashion with games that really show what their controller can do they may lose the momentum they have.
Re:Nintendo = Not Available? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I still can't get a Wii ! (Score:3, Interesting)