A while back, Killeryoshis did a very interesting comparison of the 3DS' first year against the DS' first year. The year is over now, though, and that way of comparing (which means comparing october months to May, December to July, etc) isn't what I think is the fairest way to compare numbers.
So, instead, I decided to make a comparison between the 3DS' 2012 against all the DS years on the market. From the start of the year up to now, the situation is as follows. Note that I've started the weeks at the closest date to the 7th of January (ie, the very first few days of the years aren't included, as the holiday sales from that would end up skewing the comparison.
| 2005 - DS | 2006 - DS | 2007 - DS | 2008 - DS | 2009 - DS | 2010 - DS | 2011 - DS | 2012 - 3DS | |
| Amount sold in the first 5 weeks | 392,000 | 812,000 | 1,807,000 | 1,768,000 | 1,911,000 | 1,547,000 | 1,053,000 | 1,160,000 |
| Sales for the full 52 weeks | 10,991,000 | 20,776,000 | 29,508,000 | 29,663,000 | 27,573,000 | 20,835,000 | 8,856,000 | ??? |
(For the record, I believe the Wii holds the record of the highest year of any non-DS machine, at 24.2 million)
How well do you think the 3DS can do? Will it see an amazing boost and beat even the best DS year? Will it fall off and end dead last? Will it end somewhere in between?
Edit: Above is the original post, below is from 26th March. I think a thread like this fits being updated roughly every 5 weeks. The following are the sales from (roughly) 11th February to 16th March each year
| 2005 - DS | 2006 - DS | 2007 - DS | 2008 - DS | 2009 - DS | 2010 - DS | 2011 - DS | 2012 - 3DS | |
| Amount sold in weeks 6-10 | 782,000 | 999,000 | 2,290,000 | 1,934,000 | 1,603,000 | 1,657,000 | 1,065,000 | 1,021,000 |
Which definitely isn't a very good outlook for the 3DS. It's actually selling less than the DS did in the same period last year, and just barely matching the 2006 sales, which are pre-DS lite.
Considering that, 20 million is looking to be on the optimistic side of the range now. 16 million, or something ala that, seems more likely.
