I thought this was a remarkable outcome for the year which hasn't gotten much discussion. 2009 was the DS's fifth year on the market, a year of world economic decline, and yet it managed to sell 30 million consoles. It was just under 2008's performance, effectively flat in it's fifth year.
Haven't all majorly successful consoles before peaked in their third years and declined in their fourth (with slow declines for consoles like PS2)? For the DS, not only has it's sales pace far outdone everything else, but it's peaked much later as well.
Is the conventional wisdom that a console can't be expected to peak after it's third year wrong? And considering the degree by which the PS2 is being outpaced, and how long it took for the DS to peak, and how flat it was in it's following year, could 200 million be a very low end for DS lifetime sales?
A game I'm developing with some friends:
www.xnagg.com/zombieasteroids/publish.htm
It is largely a technical exercise but feedback is appreciated.
