Topic: Official DS Sales Thread

[Mario]

That is correct! I didn't notice that, I never read what I type.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

For all the weeks that PSP has outsold the DS its still only about 60,000 ahead for 2005 in Japan, which puts it about 2-3 million behind the DS

Not only that but its software has sold like maybe a tenth of what the DS software has sold, and nintendo's big guns haven't even been released.

[BlkPaladin]

Well in a few weeks that will disappear when its released in the US.

[KDR_11k]

No way, they can't produce PSPs that fast.

[Savior]

Sony has 1 million PSPs for the US Launch (Which will probably sell very well) im not so sure it will continue to be strong past the 1 million mark....  

[Avinash_Tyagi]

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Sony has 1 million PSPs for the US Launch (Which will probably sell very well) im not so sure it will continue to be strong past the 1 million mark....

My guess is Sony has been hoarding all the ones it could produce for the US market in order to release them in one large Deluge, but you're right its likely that one the first shipment is sold out it'll be weeks before much more arrives.

This is probably why they delayed the Europe relese, they probably knew they couldn't meet initial demand for both places so they chose to hold off on the Europe launch.

[jarob]

Why do you think it wont be strong past the 1 million mark?  Everything to me looks like it will sell very well for a long time.

[Savior]

Because i dont know if they will able to go into a bigger market than the 24-30 year old tech head junkie... I still dont see them getting the bulk of the handheld market... the younger crowd, something like that

[Avinash_Tyagi]

platform title publisher this week total
1 PS2 Shin Sangoku Musou 4 Koei 569,892 new
2 GC Starfox Assault Nintendo 80,510 new
3 GBA Rockman EXE 5 Team of Colonel Capcom 62,458 new
4 DS Another Code: Futatsu no Kioku Nintendo 59,346 new
5 PS2 Jissen Pachislot: Fist of the North Star+ Sega 49,729 new
6 PS2 Dragon Ball Z3 Bandai 43,159 560,966
7 PS2 Devil May Cry 3 Capcom 38,565 233,095
8 PS2 Sakura Taisen 3 Sega 34,189 new
9 PSP Namco Museum Namco 21,775 new
10 PS2 Rumble Roses Konami 21,576 95,511

platform this week last week 2005 total
1 PlayStation 2 44,378 38,954 476,469
2 PSP 41,867 38,314 442,536
3 Nintendo DS 26,761 22,363 354,803
4 GameBoy Advance SP 11,124 10,849 159,850
5 GameCube 3,351 3,256 58,779
6 Gameboy Advance 341 399 4,762
7 Xbox 245 295 3,840

[jarob]

So PSP has sold more this year than the DS?  Wow.  Nintendo has a huge battle on their hands.

[Artimus]

If Nintendo would release actual killer aps it wouldn't be in this situation...

[jarob]

Rumors of a new GameBoy, PSP selling very well.  I know I wont be buying DS anytime soon.  Very few titles for the DS also.  What is N doing?  I really wanted a DS over the holidays and now I am happy I did not get one.  Sad to say that.  Wait and see mode.

[Deguello]

"So PSP has sold more this year than the DS? Wow. Nintendo has a huge battle on their hands."

Yeah, Sony only has, like 1 million or so more units to go.  And that's just Japan.

"Rumors of a new GameBoy"

I have a bridge on the Green Cheese Moon to sell you.

[Ian Sane]

PSP: 442,536
Nintendo DS: 354,803

These have to be the most depressing figures I've ever seen.  There's no excuse for Nintendo, the portable market leader since 1989, to launch first and be within reach of being overtaken by the PSP already.  If it was reversed and Sony was launching first I know they would have made better use of their head start.  It's bad enough that Nintendo seems incapable of defeating Sony.  It's worse that they already had the N64 to learn from yet they're showing the exact sort of inane incompetance they did back in 1996.  It's like once Sony enters a market Nintendo goes from invinicible game god to super doofus.

Oh my God!  Sony's entering our market!  We better do something weird and release no games.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

Well first off thats a 100K lead for 2005 in Japan compared to the DS having what a +1 million lead in 2004 in Japan and an almost +3 miilion lead WW, yeah the PSP is in range of overtaking the DS....Riiiight.

yeah a new Game Boy, what are you on drugs!?!?!?

even the analyst said it was going to be an update of the SP not a new Game Boy platform

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I have a bridge on the Green Cheese Moon to sell you

Yeah exactly

[jarob]

So you dont think Nintendo has a huge battle on their hands?  I would suggest you stop drinking that coolaid ;-)  You have to be honest, things don't look that good for the DS.   A million lead.  uh uh.  Just wait.  Every week the PSP is outselling the DS, wont take too long to catch up.  When/if it does, then what will you say?  What execuse will you give Nintendo then?  I want Nintendo to win this battle, but they are not looking good.  DS should have blown the PSP out of the water.  If Nintendo does not slow the PSP sales (with a few awesome games), I see a huge snow ball effect starting for the PSP.

[Avinash_Tyagi]

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So you dont think Nintendo has a huge battle on their hands? I would suggest you stop drinking that coolaid ;-) You have to be honest, things don't look that good for the DS. A million lead. uh uh. Just wait. Every week the PSP is outselling the DS, wont take too long to catch up. When/if it does, then what will you say? What execuse will you give Nintendo then? I want Nintendo to win this battle, but they are not looking good. DS should have blown the PSP out of the water. If Nintendo does not slow the PSP sales (with a few awesome games), I see a huge snow ball effect starting for the PSP.

At its current rate it'll take over a year to catch up in Japan.

As for the US it has about almost a 2 million lead, its the PSP that has a huge battle on its hands

Software sales tilt decisively in the DS's favor

You think its bad for Nintendo?  You need to look at the numbers, everything is in the DS's favor at the moment.

[KDR_11k]

The PSP has a larger library at launch because of cheap portjobs. If those don't catch on they're doomed. The DS has some major hits in the pipeline and one of them might turn out to be Nintendo's FF7. People complain about SM64DS being a port, almost all PSP games are ports. The few that aren't don't exactly appeal to the mainstream (Metal Gear Solid 3 sold bad enough already, I doubt Acid will sell even close to that). That rumored "GTA game at launch" is still nowhere to be seen.

[couchmonkey]

A two million system lead is not a huge battle.  PS2 has some tens of millions more systems sold than GameCube or Xbox - THAT is a huge battle.  This is a close fight, closer than it should be considering Nintendo launched first and has had a virtual monopoly on handheld gaming for years.

But I don't think Nintendo is doomed like some others here do, I just think it could be doing better.

[mantidor]

I think that for an experimental system, which the DS is in at least some way, Nintendo is doing extremely well. Sony doesnt have to overcome a two million sales lead of the DS, it has to overcome a 20+ million sales of the gba to say they have won in the handheld market. Unless Nintendo stopped the support for the gba, which they havent.

[KDR_11k]

I don't think it could have been any wider. The DS has a lead on the PSP... Of how many months again? We're seeing the PSP crawl slowly towards the DS in Japan but how much of a lead did the DS have on the PSP?
Nintendo took a risk here. Lauch ahead of the PSP with very few titles or launch after the PSP but with more titles. Sony was the one choosing the battlefield here. Their PSP has matured enough to be released (well, game-wise. Hardware-wise it's still a Sony), the DS saw a premature release. It wouldn't have been ready until much later, probably months after the PSP launch if Nintendo had waited for the games to be ready like they did with all their previous consoles. They've never fought such a close decisive battle before, all their other systems were never made in reaction to a competitor's launch. Iwata wants them to fight. He knows how Yamauchi's "we work our usual schedule" worked for the N64 and especially the Gamecube. Having a larger number out there first will make more third parties develop for you and even if the situation might shift later on you still have loads of games coming and a better chance at getting a killer app to turn the tables. The Xenon has more devs than the PS3 or Rev simply because it'll release earlier. That means more games by the time the others hit the market. That's 20% of the work done already (good product), the remaining 80% (perception) are up to you. Of course, as it was a reaction the DS couldn't launch early enough to get a significant advantage but launching before Sony, especially after they've revealed their true specs, is still better than launching after Sony.

Though I'm not sure the DS was a smart business move. In fact I believe Nintendo would've had a much greater chance had they left the Gameboy as their primary product for Sony to fight against. The GBA is so utterly dominant it cannot be ignored or beaten anymore. Now people see it as PSP vs. DS which is a much tougher fight. Had Nintendo waited for two years and one-upped Sony they'd have blown them back to hell. The PSP would have some momentum already but two years later would make the GBE seem like a new generation and customers willing to buy again. then it'd look like the PSP is struggling against the GBA with its HUGE library and userbase, which is a fight it has no chance of winning. I'm not sure how devs would have reacted but I'm sure they wouldn't skip the GBA. Perhaps give the PSP some portjobs for the rest of the home generation and forget it after that. At that point the GBE could come in, offer more than the PSP does, replace the GBA which has been the dominant handheld for ages and the preferred toy of kids everywhere (face it, the PSP will never grab the kid market like that). Perhaps with Gamecube AND GBA compatibility, not even leaving Sony with the library advantage of that gen. That would be the finishing blow since children would be searching for a new toy now that their GBA is so old and the PSP won't have much appeal to them (it'd be much more expensive had Nintendo not thrown in the DS) and the techfreaks will see this as the new gadget to have. Hardcore gamers will buy it anyway. If it had the dual screens (i.e. GC emulation mode and GBE mode for GC-level DS games) it would appeal to the non gamers as well. With a proper preparation time they'd have enough new titles at launch. Total devastation of Sony.

[Ian Sane]

"Sony doesnt have to overcome a two million sales lead of the DS, it has to overcome a 20+ million sales of the gba to say they have won in the handheld market. Unless Nintendo stopped the support for the gba, which they havent."

Yeah.  Just like the Playstation had to beat the SNES.  The GBA is last gen portable hardware.  It's obsolete.  I don't care if Nintendo still makes some games for it the truth is Nintendo has released superior portable hardware so the GBA is no longer a factor.  It's PSP vs DS and right now that race is pretty close all things considering.

[KDR_11k]

With the release of the Xenon development for the other consoles isn't going to stop immediately. Sure, the GBA would fade away if left unattended too long but it still has a huge userbase that won't migrate that quickly to the PSP. When the PS1 came out, did people already know about Project Reality? Did SNES games stop being released the moment the PS1 turned up or did PS1 development stop the day the Dreamcast was released? A leading console is only replaced after its manufacturer issues the next console, then people might migrate to the next thing. There are still games coming out for the PS1 and GBC and that's many more years after they've been replaced. The GBA's influx of new games would get smaller and smaller but not diminish completely until the GBE was already very close.

I was thinking primarily about image. Releasing the GBE with the stima of "Their last handheld was one of the most sold systems of the world" is much better than going in with the stigma of "Their last handheld pretty much tied with the PSP" or even worse "they already lost against the PSP". Though the two handheld pillars idea might be another way of forcing Sony to shorten the PSP's lifecycle if they wish to keep their selling point of better graphics alive... Make them compete with the weaker DS now, release the GBE at full power later...

The N64 had the huge disadvantage of cartridges, complicated APIs and the associated costs making game development much less profitable on the platform, a GBE based on GC tech would be VERY comparable to the PSP both in size and cost. Also, from what I gather the PS1 only really pulled ahead with FF7. That's what Iwata is hoping for, a killer app of FF7 scale that will pull the DS miles ahead of the PSP. A GC-based GBE would have a much better chance against the PSP than the N64 had against the PS1 (GC compatibility would also offer it games that fully use the abilities at launch as opposed to games that don't match the games made natively for the platform) because dev tools already exist and there's a huge number of games that could simply be reissued and sell to the people who didn't go with the GC this gen (a whole lot if the GBE is nearly as successful as the GBA, even half would suffice). Other games could be easy ports from the PSP maybe with an extra or two to quickly match the PSP's library.  

[Deguello]

"It's PSP vs DS and right now that race is pretty close all things considering. "

From a business standpoint I disagree.  By the Time the PSP reaches America, the DS will be available in every single major market, that being Japan, The United State, Europe, and I guess Australia.  It is the PSP that has to catch up, not the DS.  It is Nintendo's race to lose.

And as a gamer I also disagree.  The DS's future looks much brighter than the PSP's.  Look at Japan's future near-future titles for the PSP.  The most wanted game is a PSOne port.  The DS may have its share of N64 ports, but it doesn't seem to be relying on them  

Edit:

"That's what Iwata is hoping for, a killer app of FF7 scale that will pull the DS miles ahead of the PSP."

I think they are gonna get it, at least in Japan.  If not Pokemon or some Square Enix title, it will probably be that Jump Superstars game that everybody and their brother wants.

[ruby_onix]

BTW, here's a summary of all the Media Create numbers since the DS/PSP launch.

Some of my PSP "total" numbers are off somehow, and I don't think the math's wrong, so one of my numbers must be. So if anyone knows which month isn't quite right, feel free to point it out an I'll correct it.

Media Create:
Rank Platform: WeeklyTotal - YearlyTotal


Nov 29 - Dec 5
1 NDS: 468,883 - 468,883


Dec 6 - 12
1 NDS: 198,892 - 667,775
2 PSP: 160,019 - 160,019


Dec 13 - 19
1 NDS: 221,625 - 889,400
-
3 PSP: 85,059 - 245,078


Dec 20 - 26
1 NDS: 396,674 - 1,286,074
-
5 PSP: 107,217 - 352,295


Dec 27 - Jan 2
NDS: 209,522 - 1,495,596 <---2004
PSP: 129,957 - 482,252 <----Totals


Jan 3 - 9
-
2 NDS: 108,561 - 108,561
-
4 PSP: 62,052 - 62,052


Jan 10 - 16
-
2 PSP: 64,602 - 126,654
3 NDS: 53,527 - 162,088


Jan 17 - 23
PSP: 56,274 - 182,928
NDS: 44,608 - 206,696


Jan 24 - 30
PSP: 74,405 - 257,333
NDS: 43,226 - 249,922


Jan 31 - Feb 6
PSP: 48,781 - 306,114
NDS: 29,552 - 279,474


Feb 7 - 13
PSP: 45,972 - 352,086  
NDS: 26,205 - 305,679


Feb 14 - 20
-
2 PSP: 38,314 - 400,669  <- 10,269 unit error got in somewhere
3 NDS: 22,363 - 328,042


Feb 21 - 27
-
2 PSP: 41,867 - 442,536
3 NDS: 26,761 - 354,803


As far as "shipments" go, Sony apparently had 200,000 units ready for the Japanese launch. They shipped 100,000 per-week after that. By the end of December, in terms of sold/shipped percentage, the DS was more "sold out" than the PSP (yet at the same time, more readily available, because of the larger scale).

Sometime in early January, Sony managed to increase their production to well over 200,000 units a week, but by then the PSP had slowed down (that happens after major "events", without fresh new games to create more "events"), so Sony stuck with their constant 100,000 unit-per-week shipments in Japan, and started stockpiling units for the American launch.

Sony will apparently launch the PSP in America with a "massive" one million unit launch, due to the "unprecendented demand" (indicated by the "shortages" in Japan).

NPD numbers have been oddly elusive lately, but last I saw (around Christmas?) the DS was at something like 1.8 million. Probably over two million in the US right now.

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A two million system lead is not a huge battle.

The XBox was winning in America by 1 million units for the first year or two (thanks pretty much to Halo), during which time everyone seemed to be saying "Oh, well, the GameCube is holding it's own, but that's only because the XBox bombed in Japan. Here in America, the XBox is King." Now imagine what it would've looked like if the XBox had beaten the GameCube in Japan by a million units...

Of course, you can't count on that to mean anything, because XBox fanboys are blowhards, and everybody wants to kick Nintendo while they're down (and the fact that Nintendo's not down seems to be pissing everyone off, prompting them to kick harder), and the Sony fanboys think that the PSP is Kutaragi's Gift to Videogaming.