Nintendo may have seen its
first slide in net profits in over half a dozen years recently, but that's not to say all is depressed in the Mushroom Kingdom. To the contrary, in fact. The outfit's CEO has the troops fired up and
aimed squarely at Apple, and its little-handheld-that-could has just surpassed its
earlier-handheld-that-could to become the best selling portable gaming machine in history. While belting out numbers during the latest quarterly earnings report, Nintendo confessed that the
DS family (DS, DS Lite, DSi and
XL) had sold around 129 million units, and at last check, the
Game Boy crew had peaked at around 118 million. We're hearing that Sony's world-beating PlayStation 2 still leads the way when looking at all gaming devices at 140 million, but with that
3DS hitting in the near future, we might just see a new all-around champion crowned in the numbers game.
posted May 7th 2010 9:44PM
Yeah, but will they run Flash?
@grandmainger
It has a stylus -- they blew it!
@grandmainger yeah, but you FORGOT THE FIRST DS.
@DoctarPeppar
Well... naturally. A lot of games (mainly the Zelda ones) require you to blow into the system to perform certain tasks :P
I dont think it is fair to place the iPod or the iPhone into a gaming category.. It is souly a multimedia device, and it isnt even the reason most people buy one. I for sure didnt, in fact it wasnt even on my mind at all.
Thats like placing the desktop computers in this category because it can also play games.. But obviously it isnt even their main use.
Besides, it will be a good 10 years before apple sells iphones and ipods in the 100s of millions.
@uckApple well they are getting close to the 100 million mark. 85 mil at last PR. But they will never get close to Nintendo sales anytime soon, simply because of price and use (and target audience). I bet there are a hell of a lot of iPhone users who have a DS anyway, so it isn't really fair to compare them, even though Apple and Nintendo do.
@uckApple
Um....actually iPhone+iPod touch has sold 100 million units, about 20 mil short of Nintendo DS... which was released way back in 2006.
Now with the iPad selling 10million per year, its only a matter of time before Apple overtakes Nintendo here.
Sorry.
@uckApple souly?
@uckApple
I refuse to acknowledge the iPhone or iPad as a gaming device... AT LEAST not on the level of the DS and PSP. There are very very few console quality games on the iPhone... most are the 5 minute bus ride type affairs that are comparable to flash games. Giving credit where it's due... there are definitely some gems out there (I hear Angry Birds is epic... as well as Plants vs. Zombies) but those are few and far between... and neither of them can compare to Pokemon, Mario, or Zelda... not by a long shot.
also... buttons. I rest my case.
@Wesscoast
Have you realized yet that iPhone came out in 2007
The original DS didn't sell very good at all.
@Wesscoast
"Now with the iPad selling 10million per year"
Wow how was the future? Must be nice to know what a product *will* do
@Wesscoast
Since when iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad was a gaming handheld? Last time I checked to be a gaming handheld, gaming has to be the main feature not a secondary.
@grandmainger
3DS isnt a "ds", its a successor... they said this a hundred times
wow and your job is to understand and write about gadgets? amazing...
@emopoops It was too phat to fit in the picture.
@Voltage05
Nope. Stupid reasoning. Let me know when I can store like 30-50 DS games in the system instead of carrying around a box of carts.
@AlienSix
That's what it WILL do this year. Next year, with price cuts, it'll probably double or triple that rate.
Obviously.
@Drybones5
A year after the DS....
*slow applause for the history lesson.
Actually you can do that right now. There are quite a few cards that let you do exactly that, e. g. CycloDS.
Just saying, I bought my iPod Touch for gaming - if I didn't want it for gaming I would have bought a cheaper, better MP3 player from a different manufacturer. I guess whether it's better than my DS is open to debate; I mean, I use it a lot more but there are a few games on the DS such as Pokemon, Prof Layton and Zelda that are far better on their own than a ton of iPod games combined.
Unfortunately though, I find most of the games that are in the Top 50 on the App Store are actually generally quite poor and that people seem to not know of the brilliant games that exist out there (Tilt to Live is an example of one I'm playing at the moment).
That said, even though I don't use it any more, I have to say that neither have yet been able to beat the experience i've had with my PSP in the past...
@skyblaze
i agree.
@DoctarPeppar
this would be a perfect time for Microsoft to jump in the game market.wouldn't you think?
@snowrid3r /Portable/ game market.
WinMo 7 with XBL integration; that's Microsoft's quick-n-dirty entry.
And all of gaming weeps for the damage DS has done .
@Wesscoast There were two and a half years between the DS and the original iPhone - the former was released in November 2004, the latter was released in June 2007.
@Wesscoast iPad selling 10 million in 2010? That would be extremely impressive.
They sold 1 million in 28 days, that is about 35,700 a day at the peak of it's hype during the Launch of the new product. I believe that makes 1 million by May 1st.
That means for the remaining 242 or so days left in the year they would have to average about 37,200 (2k more than launch trends) in order to make 10 million by year end. Now with the 3G launch and outside-US launch on the 28th I am sure some weeks #s will pick up and Holidays will be great for the iPad.
But the say that it will average BETTER than it's Launch pace is positive thinking.
I guess we will see.
@DoctarPeppar One of the best I'm sure their 3d model will be supreme as well. http://2su.de/Wea
@Wesscoast Nope. Stupid reasoning. Let me know when I can actually play a full length video game with a compelling story line and actual multiplayer on the iPhone/iPod
Really, your comments just make you look like an idiot Apple fanboy. Tone down the Cupertino fanaticism, will you?
@InnocentEd
You're forgetting that America isn't the whole world. Worldwide release soon will pull figures up a lot...
@Shokz Pretty sure I mentioned the "outside US" in my posting.....couldn't even get to the end of my post eh?
@InnocentEd
It was pretty boring ):
Yeah, I musta missed that sentence, kinda skimmed what you wrote >.
I don't think the 3DS should count to be honest.
It's like a new console, just with a similar name
@Gordonator agreed, no fair.
@David Bailey
I disagree. It's just the same DS with a new screen (Unless it has a new graphics chip)
But in that case would you say the Playstation 2 and 3 are not part of the playstation family?
@Gamecheater But they aren't including the PS1 and 3 in the sales figures. Just the 2. And yes the new 3DS will have a new chip. Nintendo already said it is a completely new system in the original press release.
@Gordonator
Well if they're counting all the Game Boys in one group...
@m4192 Ps1 ftw
@Gordonator on that logic, we would have to put all 3 playstations together, which would put it and nearly 300 million.
@Gamecheater
Except it already has been revealed that the 3DS is not just the same innards with a 3D screen, so... yeah.
Congrats, Nintendo. Hoping for more systems in the future. My DS Lite is still standing strong for 4 years of rough usage...
Is anyone surprised?
@PhaseDMA
WRITE A COMMENT ABOUT PERRY AND I!
CALL IT "HAVING FUN WITH WALTER AND PERRY"!
DO IT NOW!
But really, Nintendo sells a boatload of these money printers every year. With a massive library of amazing games (and its fair share of shovelware, of course), it has been one of the few consoles to ever cater to the casual audience and hardcore audiences almost equally and do a good job at it. While I ended up selling my Wii, I don't imagine ever selling my DS.
Even if the 3DS wont count towards the DS's numbers, the DS will probably overtake the PS2, simply because the PS2 is dead, and the DS will probably have another 1-2 years of sales to fill that gap.
No way...nothing will be better than game gear...I still remember when it first came out, it was years ahead of it's time...I got game gear and the TV tuner thing when I was a youngin' and it was awesome.
@DoctarPeppar gamegear was fun ^^ remeber the battery drain?
@Twoleaf
Yeah, it wasn't perfect, but it was way ahead of it's time, and still my favorite handheld console to date.
And here's to the haters that thought the ds would fail miserably, and that the psp would crush it.
@B3astofthe3ast
we never got our second joystick. it could never compete.
this coming from the owner of two CFW running psps, that do nothing more than collect dust.
well...... duh
Not if Apple has anything to say about that... *sigh*
Good job, Nintendo. Now how about something NEW? Incremental improvements to the DS aren't going to fend of the iPhone (or any smartphone for that matter).
@brian515 Huh? What has the iPhone or any smartphone for that matter, got to do with Nintendo's very successful gaming products.