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Businesses The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Pokemon Leads Game Sales Up 31% in May 63

Posted by Zonk from the drowning-in-pikachu dept.
Gamasutra has several coverage elements about last month's NPD figures, which unsurprisingly show Nintendo's continued dominance of console sales numbers. A combined 569,000 units sold for Pokemon Diamond and Pearl probably helped some. "According to official sources and a number of independent reports, total industry sales were up 49 percent to $815 million for the month, with hardware sales up 79 percent to $221 million, and the Nintendo DS selling an impressive 423,000 units for the month. The rest of the hardware sales revealed that the Wii sold an impressive 338,000 units for the month, with the Xbox 360's sales down somewhat at around 155,000 units and the PlayStation 3 sold just 82,000 during May in the U.S. On the handheld side of things, the PSP trailed the DS but still sold around 221,000 units, and the Game Boy Advance sold just 80,000 units for the month. Rounding off the major players, the PlayStation 2 sold 188,000 units during May." Those DS sales are nothing to sneeze at, as an analyst group estimates that by 2011 there will be some 112 Million DS units sold ... with an 89% install base in Japan. The site has a further breakdown of last month's numbers, analyzing the dip in overall console sales and the potentials of each platform. The Curmudgeon Gamer is the mind behind that analysis, and he had two further points to make about the numbers on his site.
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Pokemon Leads Game Sales Up 31% in May More

Pokemon Leads Game Sales Up 31% in May

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  • Anyone know if Japan still has new GBA games coming out? I find it slightly freaky that the PS3 only sold 2K more units than the 80,000 GBAs.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The gap is closer to a thousand, actually. Gamasutra rounded all the numbers to the nearest thousand except for the GBA, which they rounded to the nearest ten thousand for some reason. There were 81,604 PS3s and 80,554 GBAs sold according to the numbers I saw.

      I think licensed games are still being made for the GBA, but I'm not sure if any original stuff still is.
    • It doesn't surprise me. I guess barely outselling six year old hardware by 1-2K is what it takes for Sony to admit [slashdot.org] that maybe it shouldn't make you choose between rent and entertainment.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by SP33doh ( 930735 )
      do these numbers include the gameboy micro? I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere that japan loved those things.

      and japan could quite possibly be getting a little new stuff, the last decent GBA game in north america just came out last november (yggdra union), so I wouldn't be surprised.
  • It may be an old, rehashed concept, but the new Pokemon games are great RPG's once you get over the kiddy factor of them. The 3D graphics in the new ones especially are really cool. One thing they really should have fixed up is those damn 8 bit sounds when a Pokemon makes a noise - surely there would be enough space on the DS GameCard to store the Pokemon's noises from the TV Anime series - like Pikachu
    • Personally, I prefer the 8-bit sounds. At least that way no one in my immediate vicinity on a plane or a train will realize I'm playing Pokemon.

      That, and the anime voices are annoying.
    • Then you have translation issues.

      Japanese original VS American dubbing. It's bad enough they change all the names for no reason, being forced to listen to a terrible dub would stop me buying the next release.
    • Point 1) To me, the 3d graphics don't make a lick of difference. The real killer feature in Pokemon D/P is the online play, both the direct connect and the Bidoof Dumpi[esc]dw dw i Global Trading System.

      Point 2) I really, REALLY don't want to here "pik-A-chu!" every time I put him out into battle. And anyways, it means that we won't have an entire new set of noises to pick up for every pokemon come Pokemon Plutonium/Uranium. And 496 voice clips, for the EN/JP/ES/DE/etc.. dubs add up quickly
      • Remember the special Pikachu edition?

        CRRRHHH -- PIIIIIIIII - CRRHHHHHHHSSSS - KAAAAAAAAA - KRRSSSSCCCHHHHHFFFFFFFF - CHUUUUUUUUUU _ SSSSCFCCCCCCRRRRFFFFFF

        BTW, have they prevented cheating in online play? They didn't even stop people playing with pirated games on the WFC, at least for some of the games.
        • Rumors say that they've been dropping the banhammer on people using Action Replays, but there's no solid substantial evidence
    • "One thing they really should have fixed up is those damn 8 bit sounds when a Pokemon makes a noise "

      From what I've heard, its supposed to be a growl... One of the things I thought was neet when it first came out was how they each had their own sound they made ^_^

      I agree though that it should be a little higher quality.


      "surely there would be enough space on the DS GameCard to store the Pokemon's noises from the TV Anime series"

      Personally I think that it would get annoying. It would also get rep

  • Chinpokomon! (Score:3, Funny)

    by EveryNickIsTaken ( 1054794 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:09PM (#19520251)
    Shoe vs. Lambtor ... Discuss!
  • When I saw the new DS Pokimon game out, I thought it was crap. Its not like they even bother to inovate. I thought it would tank hard.
    br. I guess it is true, if you live and work with the 8-14 year old demographic, it never gets old:P

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tainek ( 912325 )
      People seem to think innovation makes a good game *Innovation is a good thing, but a tried and tested formula that still works fantasticly is just as good*

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MS-06FZ ( 832329 )

        People seem to think innovation makes a good game

        *Innovation is a good thing, but a tried and tested formula that still works fantasticly is just as good*
        Well, yeah, when I go for a Pokemon game, I mostly want the same old thing...

        But, you know, it wouldn't have been too much to ask for them to, say, animate the characters, just a little. I'm sick of all the Pokemon just being two sprites (front and back) and a few generically-applied effects...
        • You wouldn't believe the amount of joy I received when I discovered that each Pokémon had its own sprite thanks to the technical capabilities of the GBA.
        • Yeah, the problem I think, is one of space.

          Consider: They need images and animations for each one of the 150 things in the game. AND for each of the previous 200+ that they released already that it needs to be compatable with. AND for each of the new ones that havne't been released yet, that they built in to be earned at exclusive nintendo events.

          Remember. We're talking about needing multiple animations for 490 or so different little guys. That's a lot of resources there, both in ROM budget, as well as

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MS-06FZ ( 832329 )

            Yeah, the problem I think, is one of space.

            Consider: They need images and animations for each one of the 150 things in the game. AND for each of the previous 200+ that they released already that it needs to be compatable with. AND for each of the new ones that havne't been released yet, that they built in to be earned at exclusive nintendo events.

            Remember. We're talking about needing multiple animations for 490 or so different little guys. That's a lot of resources there, both in ROM budget, as well as art production.

            I... don't care! It still looks like crap to have "Tail whip attack" be "shift left three pixels and shift right three pixels and repeat attack".

            I mean, OK, so animating every attack for every monster is a bit much - sure, I can accept that. But they should do something. Make the fuckers blink. Make 'em flinch when they get hit. Give 'em a "running" animation (a whole two frames worth of animation!) Just something better than the boring old static graphics...

  • Pokemon has made a resurgence among my classmates in the last two years. Everyone is playing the new Pokemon Pearl/Diamond, and there's a few 'retro' people like me that still play the original Blue and Silver versions. Sure, it may be a kids game, but when high school seniors are playing and enjoying updated versions of a game, I think we can all agree that Nintendo did something right with this franchise (although the anime series is lacking).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mikazo ( 1028930 )
      It's true, I'm in my senior year of high school and at least five of my friends and I all bought a copy.

      • It's true, I'm in my senior year of high school and at least five of my friends and I all bought a copy.
        Meanwhile the other seniors are going out and getting laid :P

  • Personally (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Pojut ( 1027544 ) on Friday June 15, 2007 @12:46PM (#19520837) Homepage
    While I personally never got swept up by the whole Pokemon craze, I must admit the couple games that I have played (Blue and Red) were addictive and VERY fun.

    I can only imagine the newer ones sticking to the same formula but with updated technology are just as addictive and fun.
    • I owned Blue, but never managed to find Sabrina [wikipedia.org]. I bought Diamond a couple of weeks ago, and so far I am really enjoying it. Since I live in Argentina, local trading is out of question (it is pretty hard to find anyone with a handheld), however wifi trading is very, very nice, allowing me to, at least, hope to catch 'em all for once.

      Besides the known clichés [vgcats.com], it is quite good (even though my friend list is empty *sniff*). By the way, the Japanese love female combees [wikipedia.org]. True, they are hard to catch, but I

  • Good for nintendo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by janus_games ( 1114671 )
    I always liked the parts of the series I did play (Red, blue, yellow, silver and gold). It not only let me wax halycon about my old days of 8-bit bitmap dungeon crawls (a la Dragon Warrior). It provided a unique battle system, additional non-main story arc content, and a lot of replayability (as you spent a good time trying to catch all the pokemon available in your version). They also made an amazing marketing and PR move by releasing separate versions (red and blue, gold and silver, [some two based on

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