| supermario128 said: According to VG Charts info the DS has sold almost 20 million in Japan, Japan's population is about 127 million. So that means that 16% or almost 1/6 of Japenese people own a DS. Compare that to the US with a population of about 300 million and only 15 million DS sold. That is only about 5% or 1/20 people who have bought a DS in the US. If the US was as crazy about the DS as Japan then it would have sold roughly 48 million by now. So yes, Japan is crazy over the DS. What do you guys think of the sale numbers? |
Japan seems to be becoming the nation of the handheld. The "training" games are a real big deal there. Kanji training, English training, quiz/trivia games, classical music games, art appreciation games, the list is enormous and extensive. There really is something to appeal to anybody. Once the DS caught on it was the thing to have. That's Japan. I've lived there and was there this summer and the DS craze is as big as anything I've seen. Nintendo and the third parties have been publishing tons of titles, not just games but lots of training programs, to take advantage of the huge userbase and it has been paying off. The momentum for the DS has cooled off a bit since the big Pokemon push this summer but the DS is going to keep selling like crazy for a number of years and I'm really curious as to when Nintendo is going to come out with a successor.
America hasn't seen the "training" title deluge like Japan. I suspect this has to do with NOA's observation (true or not) that those types of titles wouldn't do as well in NA. There are titles like Spanish and French Language trainers coming out this year and it will be interesting to see how much of a market there is for them. The market for the DS in America still has a huge untapped potential and userbase that Nintendo is trying to reach. The "Brain Age" titles have so far shown that the NA market is not as receptive to these titles. I put some of that down to marketing, but also, it may be that the games aren't designed for optimal acceptance in the NA market. The DS has already captured all of the "core gamer" market that there is to get. Anyone claiming to be a "core gamer" that doesn't own a DS is a fraud. The challenge for Nintendo and NOA is how to transform the DS into a "must have" entertainment, educational or application appliance like the iPod, PC, Personal Organizer or cell phone.
