Topic: Official DS Sales Thread

[IceCold]

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Thanks to Aussiedude, those numbers are interesting. So Europe is the only territory that I don't think we have some sort of numbers for now.

I think we have some Spanish and French numbers showing the success of the DS with Nintendogs..

[BlackNMild2k1]

Bestbuy.com sales charts: June 11-17

1. New Super Mario Bros.
2. Brain Age
3. Big Brain Acamedy
4. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
5. 2006 FIFA World Cup (PS2)
6. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (360)
7. Mario Kart DS
8. Hitman: Blood Money (360)
9. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (PS2)
10. 2006 FIFA World Cup (360)

DS has the TOP 4 and 5 of the TOP 10, not bad, not bad at all.

[wandering]

Dawn of Sorrow? I thought that had gone out of print or something?

[IceCold]

However much the DS hardware sales are disappointing in North America, those are great software numbers. Someone should have told Sony that taking the focus off gaming on the PSP would lead to this - I wonder what the total software sold on the DS vs PSP would be.

[couchmonkey]

Wow, looks like the Lite really is boosting DS in North America.  Awesome.  Everything is in line now.

[31 Flavas]

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Originally posted by: IceCold
However much the DS hardware sales are disappointing in North America [...]

Ok, maybe i'm just a happy go lucky Nintendo optimist, but according to vudu's May NPD numbers the DS sold 147,000 units. What's disapointing about moving close to 150,000 units in a month? Sony isn't really doing all that much better, i'd think they'd let their numbers out otherwise....

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those are great software numbers. Someone should have told Sony that taking the focus off gaming on the PSP would lead to this - I wonder what the total software sold on the DS vs PSP would be.

Heh... I'd like to know as well. US as well as Japan.

[IceCold]

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Ok, maybe i'm just a happy go lucky Nintendo optimist, but according to vudu's May NPD numbers the DS sold 147,000 units. What's disapointing about moving close to 150,000 units in a month? Sony isn't really doing all that much better, i'd think they'd let their numbers out otherwise....

The disappointing thing is that the PSP is outselling it hardware-wise. Regardless of the fact that the tie-in ratio for the PSP is dismal, it still is disappointing that it's outselling the DS here. I posted this a while back..

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Seriously, I can't fathom it. It's just dumbfounding. Nearly every single major franchise that sold the GBA to so many people in North America has been successfully translated to the DS, and in some cases with even better results. Castlevania. Advance Wars. Sonic. Kirby. Mario Kart (not a port). Mario & Luigi. Wario Ware. All of these have arguably better versions on the DS, and they were integral to the success of the GBA. Combine these with some awesome new IPs or new handheld iterations, and the DS's library is nothing if not healthy. The only two big franchises left are Pokemon and Metroid (both coming sooner or later). And please don't say anything about new "traditional" IPs - when Madden is annually on top of the North American charts, that clearly isn't the case.

So why on earth is the DS selling so badly over here? After the launch, I knew Kirby and Meteos wouldn't be enough to boost sales significantly. But I was confident that when autumn and Christmas came, the great new titles would push the DS on top once and for all in a big way. I mean, come on, that lineup from September to December was just brilliant. When this didn't happen, I was shocked, but I waited for Metroid Hunters; great graphics, online, FPS, handheld? Bingo! Or was it? We don't know the actual sales numbers, and NPD is inaccurate as usual, but all signs point to it horribly underperforming. And worse, it didn't sell much hardware.

There are some bright spots though; namely the DS Lite, New Super Mario Bros, and to a lesser extent, Brain Training. If Peach sold so well (relatively), then NSMB should be a hit. But all bets are off now; from what we've seen, anything's possible. I will say, though, that I will give up on this market if Mario doesn't help the DS.

Well, looks like the situation is improving, but I'll wait for the coming months to decide. I just know that the DS should be outselling the PSP and the GBA by a wide margin, and it wasn't. NPDs are not 100% indicative of the actual figures, but they're not way off either. Enough so that we can actually use them and get a feel for the sales. So, even though the DS library is in every way superior to the PSP one, it is still not a runaway succcess here, which it should be. It was confirmed that last month the PSP outsold the DS again in terms of hardware, albeit by a slim margin. This has been happening since last year..

And yeah, Sony brought that problem on themselves. It's all about the software tie-in ratio. And to say that the PSP's tie-in ratio is horrendous is an understatement. It stems from the fact that the PSP takes the focus off gaming. It's also a multimedia player, and games just aren't as important. With all the functions it has, the software sales are bound to be much, much lower. The DS, on the other hand, focuses almost purely on games. It's what Nintendo has always done; make a system for games and nothing else. This has many advantages, not the least of which protecting the tie-in ratio. That's one thing the DS has going for it over the PSP; its software sales are significantly higher than those of the PSP. And developers notice this too; who cares if the userbase is high when no one buys games?

Yeah, that post was far too long  

[BlackNMild2k1]

Media Create Sales: 12 - 18 June

1. (DS, Nintendo) New Super Mario Brothers - 200,037 / 1,678,646
2. (DS, Nintendo) More Brain Age - 60,463 / 2,537,238
3. (PS2, Konami) World Soccer Winning Eleven 10 - 52,124 / 813,531
4. (DS, Bandai Namco) Digimon Story - 41,135 / new
5. (DS, Nintendo) Brain Age - 40,878 / 2,398,608
6. (DS, Nintendo) Animal Crossing Wild World - 30,206 / 2,830,211
7. (DS, Nintendo) English Training DS - 26,723 / 1,168,346
8. (DS, Nintendo) Tetris DS - 23,762 / 620,348
9. (PS2, D3) Pachislot Vol. 5 Shinseiki - 23,587 / 124,554
10. (PSP, SCE) Doko Demo Issho Let's Gakkou! - 16,852 / new
~
11. Metal Saga DS - 16,184
12. Mario Kart DS
13. Pokemon Ranger
14. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney BEST PRICE (DS) - 10,747
15. Metroid Prime Hunters - 9,973
16. Zoids Dash (DS) - 6,655
17. Daito Giken Pachislot (PSP)
18. Jikkyou Powerful Pro Major League (PS2)
19. DQ and FF in Itadaki Street Portable (PSP)
20. Big Brain Academy
21. Puzzle Series Vol. 3 SUDOKU (DS)
22. Nouryoku Trainer Portable 2 (PSP)
23. Kaito Rousseau (DS) - 4,815
24. Kanji Sonomama DS Rakubiki Jiten
25. World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 UE (PSP The Best)
26. Monster Hunter Portable
27. Tamagotchi no Puchi Puchi Omisetchi
28. Final Fantasy XII
29. .hack//G.U. Vol 1
30. Dare Demo Asobi Taizen

Unconfirmed Hardware #'s

DSL - 141,487
PSP - 24,653
DS - 22,748
PS2 - 20,737
GBASP - 4,642
Xbox360 - 1,407

[Requiem]

19 out of 30?!

[31 Flavas]

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Originally posted by: IceCold

The disappointing thing is that the PSP is outselling it hardware-wise. Regardless of the fact that the tie-in ratio for the PSP is dismal, it still is disappointing that it's outselling the DS here. I posted this a while back..

Well, if it is so disappointing / despressing to see that the DS number exclusivly is not crushing the PSP number... how about thinking of it this way....

Nintendo *is* taking the PSP out 2:1 no joke. GBA and DS together sell 300k+ units. So, handheld video consumers know what they want. They want Nintendo stuff. They just still like GBA stuff here in America. And I don't think you should be so quick to want to kill off the GBA. Yes, the Nintendo DS is quite a smart purchase. But still, if Bobby and Billy or Howard and Steve want to do GBA multi-player games, DS won't work. Even still GBA are $50 less expensive. So if they only want to play GBA games, the GBA is still cheaper.

Once they are do come off the GBA, guess what they will buy? It won't be a PSP that's for sure.

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Yeah, that post was far too long

Sorry, I didn't comment on the rest of it I did read it though!

 

[Chzn8r]

DS must not be on shortages anymore, the original model just sprung back up in sales.

[couchmonkey]

Yeah, I noticed that too.  It's like, the most interesting thing in those numbers.  That and a PSP game took 10th place.  Looks like Nintendo's doomed, guys.

[Kairon]

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Originally posted by: Requiem
19 out of 30?!

But only 4 or 5 of those are from 3rd parties?

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Magik]

The PSP is selling better than the DS in North America simply because of the brand.  The majority of people who are buying it simply because it has the 'PlayStation' brand on it.  The 'PlayStation' brand in North America is that damn strong coupled with the aggressive and very effective marketing.

There's also a small minority that is buying the PSP because of its other functions such as playing videos through UMDs or Memory sticks, and even for music.

Before the DS Lite, the PSP had the advantage of having a piece of hardware that looked sleek and sexy compared to the clunky boring original DS look.  The 'look' also contributed to the PSP's popularity but that advantage is now cancelled out.

[BlackNMild2k1]

GamesIndustry.biz
Original DS sells 4.5 million in Europe

4.5 million Europe (pre DS Lite)
4.6 million (US NPD as of May 06)
8.9 million Japan (Media Create as of June 18th 06)

By the end of June DS sales will be over 19 million worldwide.

and Unconfirmed:
Australia = 227,369 as of June 4 (also pre-DS Lite)

[ShyGuy]

how many PSPs worldwide? 15-16 mill?

[Kairon]

Shipped.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[couchmonkey]

I'm guessing the actual sales for PSP are somewhere in the 14 million range.  Totally uneducated guess, it just seems like having around 3 million in stock would be about right.

[Ian Sane]

Do third parties know the actual PSP sales numbers?  If I was the head of a third party publisher and I asked Sony for sales figures and they gave me shipped figures I'd send them a reply asking for USEFUL data.  It's one thing to try to fool gamers and the media for marketing purposes.  But the userbase number is important information for third parties trying to make money off of a videogame system.  Or so I imagine anyway.

[Smash_Brother]

I can't understand why anyone is still making games for the PSP: the tie in ratio is horrible and we already have multiple cases of companies porting their games off of the console to recoup losses because they sold so poorly.

[Chzn8r]

Are you people crazy? PSP can't even be near that high with how big the gap in sales there is between it and the DS in Europe and (especially) Japan. Wasn't the worldwide total as of the holidays like 12 million to 6.5 million (DS and PSP respectively)?

[IceCold]

I'd say the PSP is at 11 or 12 million sold..

[Requiem of Darcness]

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Originally posted by: IceCold
I'd say the PSP is at 11 or 12 million sold..

And I'd say your are insane. The DS and PSP are only neck and neck in the US. The PSP is getting slaughtered by DS in Japan and it has a commanding lead in Europe. The PSP has sold 9 million worldwide at best.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The pathetic, tucked-away, SHRINKING UMD section at Walmart is all I need to see.

[31 Flavas]

yea... UMD movies... wow, who's going to pay to clean that mess up?