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Portables (Games)

400,000 Additional DSs Available by Year's End 355

Posted by Zonk from the that's-800,000-screens! dept.
SetupWeasel writes "The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is reporting that 400,000 additional DSs will be shipped to the US by year's end. This will bring the US total to 1.4 million by the end of 2004." There's also a story running on Gamesindustry.biz regarding DS sales being in line with the sales of the Gameboy Advance.
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400,000 Additional DSs Available by Year's End More

400,000 Additional DSs Available by Year's End

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  • hmmm (Score:4, Funny)

    by RobertTaylor ( 444958 ) <roberttaylor1234 AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday December 09, 2004 @05:45PM (#11046410) Homepage Journal
    "Harrison said the company did not try to keep the initial Nintendo DS supply artificially low to attract extra attention."

    However with demand high and supply low... it makes the news! Strange that... ;)

    • Re:hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mumblestheclown ( 569987 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @06:16PM (#11046689)
      I know (think) you were trying to be funny, but there will doubtlessly be a few readers who think that there is a real MBA conspiracy at play here.

      In reality, it takes only a few moments thought to see that a strategy of keeping supply artificially low for such a product is foolish and doomed to failure.

      In reality, the better strategy is to get people to *think* there is a shortage, and reinforce this notion by having a short-term shortage around now, but quietly slip market-clearing quantities into the market closer to christmas.

  • Touch screen is schweeeeet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chroot_james ( 833654 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @05:47PM (#11046439) Homepage
    I had the chance to play one of these with Metroid. I really liked it. There seems to be some discussion over the usefulness of the touch pad and I've found that the touch pad servers to mimic a mouse in fps's quite well. I felt at home pretty quickly. It was quite responsive too. I'm still holding out for the PSP though. I think nintendo games are a little too cute for me.
    • That and the wifi alone are the reasons I want this thing. The fact is this: you have a console with
      a) each player has his own screen, no splitscreen bullshit
      b) large scale networking, including large flash-storage for network spawning
      c) a real pointing device.

      Who cares about two screens, or the microphone, or any other frill features of the damn thing. To me, the implication is obvious: here's a handheld console with a featureset makign it ideal for just about every awesome PC title for the past decade.
    • I'm still holding out for the PSP though. I think nintendo games are a little too cute for me.

      Where I agree with you on the Nintendo products, the PSP is shown to only have one analog thumbstick, making it difficult for FPS games.

      Frankly I don't understand the handheld game market anyway, so please take my options on the matter with a grain of salt (whatever that means).
      • Why handhelds?

        I bought a Gameboy Advance used for about $20 USD so I could connect it to my gamecube for things like the Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion link bonuses. After I had picked up a few games for it I invested in the SP because it has a better form factor, a backlit screen, better battery life, etc..

        Now I carry it everywhere. Bored on the bus and riding alone? I pull out my GBA and play some Metroid. TV in use? No problem, I've got my own screen.

    • Re:Touch screen is schweeeeet (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Apathetic1 ( 631198 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @10:45PM (#11048360) Journal
      I dunno, I think it would be hard to qualify Metroid Prime: Hunters or GoldenEye DS as "cute". I think there's going to be scores of RPGs (most of which are similarly not-cute) for the DS because of the capabilities provided by the second screen, e.g. tapping menus instead of scrolling through them.

      Even if the majority of Nintendo's first- and second-party titles are cute, I have yet to play one that I didn't enjoy. Windwaker, despite its cartoonish appearance was fun and challenging, and the characters were all very expressive even when under player control. I found the attention to detail amazing.

  • NNNOOOO!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kjuib ( 584451 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @05:48PM (#11046444) Homepage Journal
    My EBay DS Sales will go down the tubes... Now where am I supose to make all my Christmas Money?
    • Same as everybody else on eBay: miracle diet pills that worked wonders for your wife. That, or information CDs.

  • I found out... (Score:3, Informative)

    by LavaDevil94 ( 712490 ) <junkm@riversdell.com> on Thursday December 09, 2004 @05:48PM (#11046446) Homepage
    ...what DS stands for... Dual Screen

    • Re:I found out... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nintendo's been saying a couple things; its codename was DS for "Developer's System," since they wanted to make it super nice for their developers; then it was "Dual Screen" because of the two screens. Then they couldn't come up with a better name, so they just kept it as "DS."

      • Re:I found out... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mike the Mac Geek ( 182790 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @07:18PM (#11047189) Journal
        Actually, it's code name was "Nitro".

        On the Warioware sire (Nintendo's developer portal), there was development for the Gamecube, the GBA, and the "Nitro" shortly after it was first shown.

        Also, look at the part numbers on each component. On the Gamecube it is "GCN-XXX". On the GBA, it's "AGB-XXX". On the DS, the code is "NTR-XXX". The easiest way to see is on the game cards, on the back for the generic cart number (NTR-005) and the front sticker for the game-specfic part number (NTR-ASME-USA for Mario 64 DS.)

    • Re:I found out... (Score:4, Informative)

      by sacherjj ( 7595 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @06:45PM (#11046923) Homepage
      Yeah, no kidding. A little more description might be nice. My RSS feed said "400,000 Additional DSs Available by Year's End"

      I'm thinking Domain Servers? (Do we need them?)

      Dhrystone per Second? (But shouldn't we concentrate on benchmarking Floating Point too?)

      Data Sources? (There is already too much to read out there, I really don't need 400,000 more places to get data.)

      Digital Signals? (I didn't think broadcasts in the US had to go digital until 2006?)

      Just the word "Nintendo" would have been good for those of us too busy to play games all the time.
  • ...if these people just artificially inflate demand around the holidays through talk about "undersupply", and then pop a load of 'em on the market just in time. Nah, couldn't possibly be! [Just like every other year.]

  • Demand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bludstone ( 103539 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @05:52PM (#11046489)
    While Nintendo has a large buffer in case of a failed console, ($1b) they still try to minimize possible economic hardship. Rather then have a massive run, then lose to a failed console, they slowly introduce new consoles to the marketplace, maintaining profits throughout.

    That being said, PSP vs. DS should be fantastic. Both systems have fantastic games lined up for them, and both look to be really, really cool.

    I had a chance to play with a DS. First impression? Nifty, but nothing to make me buy it... yet.
  • what the heck is a "DS"? Did I miss anything?

    • Re:Call me ignorant, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by BRSQUIRRL ( 69271 ) on Thursday December 09, 2004 @06:21PM (#11046729)
      I'm not going to call you ignorant, because I myself have noticed be a bit of acronymic presumption on the part of Slashdot editors...and it seems to be especially common in gaming-related stories. I've lost count of how many stories concerning the "DS" or the "PSP" (products that have barely been released) have been posted that fail to actually mention what they ARE.

      Now I can understand not defining "PHP" or "RIAA"...but not everyone stays on the cutting edge of game technology. Anyway...

      DS [nintendo.com]
      PSP [playstation.com]
    • Nintendo isn't always that great at publicizing their recent products. If you read the article, it would tell you that the DS is Nintendo's new handheld system. Its capabilities are somewhat comparable to the N64, just as the GBA's capabilities are analogous to the Super Nintendo.

      The lower of the "dual" screens is touch-sensitive and one uses a stylus to write or steer on it. The system is wireless-enabled and I think it's about time. I pretty much never carry around a gameboy link cable.

      I am looking
    • Instead of posting an ignorant-sounding question, you could always just click on the link and read the Fine article, with a much smaller amount of effort than is required to post a comment.

      As an added bonus, fewer people would call you ignorant, and you might just become a little less ignorant in the process.

      Not to go on about your ignorance far too much, but are you the kind of person who walks around the office asking for someone to define a word for you, rather than picking up a dictionary or typing "def

    • I mean what kind of idiot would submit an article that didn't explain their acronyms?

      Oh wait.
  • This is one device that was available in the US first. (Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/09/163521 7&tid=126)

  • 700K vs 500K!? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EmperorKagato ( 689705 ) * <sakamura@gmail.com> on Thursday December 09, 2004 @05:56PM (#11046528) Homepage Journal
    Wow that is a suprise: American units outselling Japan Units. I applaud Nintendo of America for boosting available units. Unlike what happened with that tragic accident with the Nintendo 64.
    • It was released in North America almost two full weeks before Japan [cubemasters.com], so it's no wonder that they've currently sold more here.

      In fact, seeing as how each launch was quite different (here it came with a Metroid Demo, in Japan there were more games at launch), it's pretty meaningless to compare sales between the two regions on an absolute basis.
  • I agree with the other comments here about the 'cool' of this device. I played with Metroid the other day at an EBGame$ store. The touch screen concept, especially with FPS, makes a lot of sense.

    Still, I couldn't justify purchasing it.. There's just nothing compelling software-wise that makes me want to jump and buy this thing. I'd love to see some classic PC remakes like command and conquer on there. That would be cool.

  • As more and more people become interested in DS hacking and home-brew development, I must personally say that this is the best news we have heard in a while. The Ni-Fi hacking scene as well as the DS cart dumping scene is moving along quite nicely, and every bit of help we can get, the better.
  • This is all fine and dandy but when is the UK, and the rest of Europe, getting the DS?
  • 400,000 more systems is all well and good... but what about selfish bastards such as myself who've already managed to get theirs and just want more games? The DS itself is quite nice indeed (as other posters have already mentioned... check it out yourself at Best Buy or your local game store if you doubt), but the only game that's really worthwhile at this point is Mario 64 DS, which got kinda old kinda quick. It's a great game and all, and yeah, they changed some stuff around from the original, but it's

    • Where's the Metroid game?

      Did you look in your box? It came with the DS. Any there will be more games, Nintendo's always been a little slow at ramping up new titles for a launch.
  • ...Circuit City, San Raphael, CA. I think this talk of shortages is just hype.

    By the way, the DS is AWESOME!

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