Nintendo's DS Success Story
The rise and rise of the twin-screen portable.
With all the attention being given to the Wii, it's easy to forget about Nintendo's other big hardware success, the DS. New figures out this week are a reminder of how well the portable is doing.
Nintendo said that the DS has now sold more than 4 million units in the UK alone. That's nearly a quarter of all the DSs sold outside of Japan and the Americas.
The DS was released in March 2005 in the UK and immediately became the fastest selling piece of hardware here, with 87,000 of them bought in the first two days. By November 2006, after the redesigned DS Lite had invigorated the portable, sales were at 2 million in the UK. It took just one year to double that.
Worldwide the DS has now sold over 53 million units and more than 260 million games have been bought for those systems.
The most popular game in the UK is Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, the seemingly unstoppable game designed to exercise your grey matter. More than a million people in the UK now own a copy, and Nintendo has sold half a million of the sequel too.
P L E A S E V I S I T O U R S P O N S O R :
For Nintendo, it's a firm sign of support after an attitudinal shift at the company, one that aimed to introduce new experiences for newcomers, rekindle the passion in lapsed gamers while keeping its core fanbase on its side.
The numbers suggest things are going according to plan.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo
