Topic: Sales Figures

[kirby_killer_dedede]

http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=3934

I'm pretty pleased with how the DS and PSP fared.  Of course, these only cover the PSP's first day, but judging by the total number of DS's sold, I think that 10 days to sell 500,000 PSPs for a fair comparison is goign to be kind of tough.

Just my opinion.  Now I'm assured - nintendo iz d0omd.  

[PaLaDiN]

Unless I'm mistaken the first week of Mario and Wario sales were better than any PSP game's sales. I also like how the DS is selling better than the PSP on its opening week.

Which means that any reasonable way you slice it, the DS is selling better.

Meanwhile, I doubt anybody's really surprised. The general opinion is that the PSP might overtake the DS sales later on, especially with Metal Gear Acid coming out.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

I wouldn't say Wario did poorly, but Mario did kick his tail pretty hard.  ^_^

[Mario]

Metal Gear Acid flopped, it sold 12,000 copies on day 1.

[PaLaDiN]

"Metal Gear Acid flopped, it sold 12,000 copies on day 1."

You're kidding. I certainly wasn't expecting that.

[jarob]

Only 1 GameCube game on there.  How did the new Metroid sell?

I hope this site updates their PHP software.  Yikes.

[nitsu niflheim]

I was suprised when I saw how many copies MGA sold compared to the 300,000 plus copies MGS3 sold the first day.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

One of the biggest reasons I was turned off by the PSP was that their flagship title, Metal Gear Ac!d (for some reason Konami thinks its cool to have an exclamation point rather than a normal "i"), was a freaking turn-based card game.

That's more than likely the reason it didn't sell, seeing as the only two noteable card based games this generation are Baten Kaitos and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories.

[couchmonkey]

Hmm, well, these figures are reassuring to the fanboy in me.  Honestly, I expected the PSP to do better.  I'm really interested to see what happens in North America.  I wonder if the systems will get split along national lines.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

I hope that every plane carrying a shipment of PSP's across North America is hijacked.

"hope..." hehehe

[nitsu niflheim]

well there was only like 200,000 PSP available for the launch in Japan, why Sony launched with that low a number is stupid, and they didn't sell out as the media had been reporting.  I guess the demand wasn't as great as the media had hoped.  I have read that something around 160,000 [edit] units were sold, but with all the hype you would have thought that the system would have sold out with people crying bloody murder in the streets because they couldn't get one.  

[PaLaDiN]

"I guess the demand wasn't as great as the media had hoped. I have read that something around 160,000 [edit] units were sold, but with all the hype you would have thought that the system would have sold out with people crying bloody murder in the streets because they couldn't get one."

They certainly fooled me too... I guess in the end it was just about the lack of pre-ordering. That was pretty shrewd on Sony's part, making the demand look much higher than it actually was.

I also think media bias had something to do with it, but I'll never understand why the bias exists.

[Artimus]

The fact that the DS outsold it this week is huge. And fantastic news for us all. I'm actually quite surprised and may have underestimated the thing.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

I was wrong about the Mario Wario sales figures...

Mario creamed Wario last week, but this week Wario came ahead with 4,000 more units sold.

EDIT: Oh, and how many DS's were sold on Day 1?  Just for a better comparison.

[Deguello]

I believe the DS sold 230,000 thereabouts Day 1.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

That's like...awesome news, Deguello, thanks.  I wanna wet myself.

[Zach]

WOW!! this is really great news, I am so sick of nintendo always losing to the competition lately, and I was afraid that it would happen again (N64 lost to sony, GC lost to sony and microsoft; in the states anyway).  but it has only begun, this is a good start, but it is a little early to celebrate the victory of the DS over the PSP.

Still, I am really optimistic about this

[nitsu niflheim]

I also find the fact the DS outsold the PSP on the PSP launch to be a pleasant surprise, I would have though the PSP to outsell the DS.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

The war is far from over, but the first battle was definitely launch day.

DS - 1
PSP - HOHOHOHOHO Zippo

[Pale]

Now i don't have any facts to back this up, but you guys are forgetting about the possibility that the PSP sold through 100% of its stock thus maxing its possible sales...

[Ages]

i've read Sony had an inital shipment of 200k PSP's

[Forksaken Profet]

Quote
Originally posted by: PaleZer0
Now i don't have any facts to back this up, but you guys are forgetting about the possibility that the PSP sold through 100% of its stock thus maxing its possible sales...

Nope. First day estimates up PSP sales in the 160k area, well short of the actual supply. With the news of PSP battery sucking (which is apparently true to an extent) and other rumors, it's no wonder it didn't sell. Sony artificially created hype by disallowing pre-orders. The reason DS lines weren't that long was because Nintendo had half a million shipped and didn't have to worry, so people could pre-order and pick up the DS after work.

When people realize what the PSP actually is, it'll tank in the US, similar to Game Gear, except Game Gear was pretty good, only you had to carry around a bag full of AA batteries to play it.

[ruby_onix]

Nintendo and Sony have both sold about 80-90% of their available hardware. It's tough to have a 100% sellout. You always get stories about people saying "Argh! I can't find unit-X anywhere! I'm on a 3-month waiting list!" followed by people saying "What are you smoking? I thought unit-X bombed. My corner store has had 3 of them for two weeks now, and not one has been sold yet."

But it's easier to get a sellout with a smaller supply and more frenzy. Nintendo really shipped a lot of units, and amazingly they've all been selling. People really seem to be confident in Nintendo with the DS.

Microsoft got a 1 million unit lead in America right at the start with the XBox over the GameCube (mostly thanks to Halo), and held onto it for a year or two, at which point people just seemed to "accept" that the XBox was beating the Cube, and support started falling away from Nintendo.

Now the DS is beating the PSP in Japan by almost 700,000 units, and at best for each side, they're going to start pacing each other. That gives Sony a real uphill battle, and even if they rev things up a bit, they're still most likely going to need Nintendo to make a significant mistake before they even get the opportunity to even things up.

And then you notice that the DS's lead in America is over 700,000 and growing.

[Urkel]

The main reason I don't see the PSP beating the DS in the end is the lack of original games. From what I understand, the cost of developing a PSP game is comparable to a console game. So they have to charge more, resulting in a console priced game. This, in essence, makes the PSP the fourth console on the market.

Most people only have a portable as a secondary system, and not as their primary source of gaming. They don't buy as many portable games because of this. PSP games, on the other hand, cost about as much as a typical console game, so the decision to buy a new game carries about as much weight as buying a console game.

Will your average Joe gamer choose to purchase PSP games over PS2 games? In most cases, I would bet not. So what incentive is there for developers to create original games on the PSP if the software tie ratio is lower? What incentive is there to the average gamer to buy a PSP if they already own most of the games available for it?

I'm not counting out the PSP from getting some major exclusive killer app in the future, but it hasn't happened yet. MGS: Acid? Nah. I'm sure that game will sell real well in North America at first, but once word of mouth spreads that it's a card based strategy game, expect sales to plummet. And what's to stop the PSP from suffering the same situation as the Gamecube where so called "exclusives" end up getting ported to PS2 because 3rd parties want to reach out to a larger userbase?

I just think everybody has underestimated the DS, even Nintendo. First they projected 3 million sales, then they raised it to 4 million and now it's 5. Absolutely nobody expected this.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

d00med.