Nintendo Sells 10 Million DSes in Japan
Classic franchises and non-games pull the portable into the stratosphere.
Nintendo announced not long ago that the DS had overtaken the PSP as the best selling handheld in the UK. While things are now going well over here for the portable, it's in Japan that the really impressive stuff is happening.
The company said this week that it has now sold more than 10 million DSs in Japan, according to an article at GameSpot. To put that into perspective, at the end of July Nintendo said it had sold 21 million DSes worldwide.
The weekly sales charts kept by Japanese firm Media Create have the system selling around 130,000 units a week - well ahead of anything other hardware. In fact, for the week ending 23 July, the DS sold 235,000 copies - eight times what the PSP sold.
Part of the reason for this impressive run is Nintendo's strategy of keeping in touch with old fans through games such as New Super Mario Bros while still having new ideas such as Dr Kawashima's Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain? and Nintendogs for those not comfortable with traditional games.
Nintendo is also up to its old tricks of releasing new colour variants. The most recent is the DS Lite Noble Pink, which pushed DS sales way up in its first week on sale.
Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games