Handheld vs home systems has usually been an unfair comparison in favor of the home systems. Handhelds have lower attach rates, and until DS lower overall sales, which means there are fewer mega-hits. As I pointed out, only 8 GB/GBA games in history outsold Melee. 5 of them were Pokemon games; only 1 on DS. 2 were pack-ins; none on DS. But there are already 7 >Melee hits on DS.
Price advantage of handheld games? C'mon. Unit sales remains more important than revenue. Though if you want to talk revenue, make sure to mention it with Halo and GTA. And suddenly Guitar Hero and Rock Band enter the conversation too.
Other than a few titles like Mario Party and Animal Crossing, the traditional franchises which have been boosted by DS and Wii have not exploded past historical sales. Smash may beat historical sales by a wider margin than the likes of Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda, etc., but it will not sell at twice or three times historical levels. I expect around 50% higher than Melee, or 10 million sales.
Anyways, if you think parts of the prediction are fluff, hold me to the bits about MK: Wii and DS, Galaxy, Wii Fit, Brain Training 1 and 2 and Animal Crossing DS all beating Brawl, which seem to be controversial enough. I'm done explaining myself and ready to "wait and see."
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
