The Reuters news service recently interviewed Nintendo Co. President Satoru Iwata, who said that there is "an emerging possibility" that Nintendo will exceed their DS sales forecast of 20 million units by the time their fiscal year ends in March. (Nintendo had previously raised the figure from 17 million.) The additional hardware sales would mean that Nintendo could also be in a position to beat their estimate of a 60.5% growth in operating profit from the previous year.

Analysts think that might not happen, though. Now that the Wii has been released in Japan, some fear that the demand for Wii could eat into DS sales. Iwata disagrees. "Some analysts say the largest rival of the Wii is the DS. But if you take a look at DS sales in the United States in the Thanksgiving week or DS sales in Japan in the week of the Wii launch, there has been little impact."

The success Nintendo is enjoying with the Japanese DS is nothing short of amazing, so much so that not even Iwata expected it: "What happened in Japan this year is a bit out of the ordinary. It would be too optimistic to expect a situation like that to last long." In the same breath, he mentioned that the handheld is really starting to pick up steam in America and Europe, territories where Iwata believes the DS "still has room for growth."