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Nintendo DS Japanese Shipment Numbers

by Daniel Bloodworth - October 26, 2004, 11:45 pm EDT
Total comments: 8 Source: Nintendo

Nintendo has revealed the number of units they plan to ship to Japan at launch and by year-end.

Nintendo recently updated their Japanese DS product page with information regarding shipment figures for the launch period. There will be 300,000 systems available on December 2nd. New shipments will be made every week, adding up to over one million shipped in Japan by the end of December. NCL also revealed that an official pre-order initiative is set to begin November 3rd, about one month before launch.

Talkback

MarioOctober 26, 2004

Is that all?

PSP will sell better.

Ian SaneOctober 27, 2004

That's pretty small. If those are the numbers for the Japanese launch how many systems are they going to have for the earlier American launch? A PS2 level launch shortage can create a good buzz but it can also backfire huge if the competition eats into those sales.

So far the DS launch looks to be quite rushed.

Spak-SpangOctober 27, 2004

As long as Nintendo is keeping its promise of weekly new shipments I actually don't think that number is that bad.

300,000 will handle the presales and alittle more. In the next weeks if Nintendo keeps a steady stream of 150,000 or more I think Nintendo will have enough for the holiday season.

Hopefully, Nintendo will be providing larger numbers for the American release, because we are going to need them.

But, because of these numbers I am going today and preordering my DS, before the hype gets going with the system.

Ian Sane, you have been harping on this DS rushed for awhile. Yeah, it was rushed EVERY LAUNCH for a system has been rushed. Sometimes it is more important to get your product on the market sooner than later. Nintendo's Christmas launch is going to be very important in creating a user base to combat the PSP. And Nintendo will have the DS games in the following months to keep gamers happy.

LoknoOctober 27, 2004

I heard there are currently around 2 million registered DS in the US. Is there any word on how many DS they'll have ready for launch?

vherubOctober 27, 2004

Any historical context to put this in perspective? say the shipments of gba/sp?

Ian SaneOctober 27, 2004

Gamespot says that Japan and North America get 1 million DS units each. Lokno what do you mean by "registered DS"? If you mean pre-ordered than only half of those who pre-ordered will get one. That's not good.

LuigiOctober 27, 2004

Are you guys hedging your bets against Nintendo so you can sound sound elite? This thread is sad. Seriously, compare these numbers with other system launches. And remember, this isn't a GameBoy.

ruby_onixOctober 27, 2004

Quote
This thread is sad. Seriously, compare these numbers with other system launches.

That's what vherub just asked for help with...

After some quick Googling, it looks like the PS2's American launch shipment was originally supposed to be 1 million, but then at the last minute Sony chopped that to 500k, with 100k more units arriving every week, until they had just over a million by Christmas. I think Japan was about the same.

The XBox supposedly followed the same sort of pattern in America, but got up to something like 1.5 million shipped before Christmas. In Japan, their first launch shipment was 500k, but then they spent about two years trying to get people to buy the launch shipment.

Another interesting figure is that about a month ago Nintendo raised their sales projections from 3.5 to 4 million worldwide, by the end of March.

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