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Zucas on 16 April 2010
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kingofwale said:
Zucas said:
kingofwale said:
Zucas said:
kingofwale said:
well, it is out the longest, it has the lowest price point and in a market that has been dominated (if not monopolized) by Nintendo for god-knows how long

is this really a shocker to anybody?

Well considering GBA only sold a little more than half of what the DS has sold in Japan, has only 4 million sellers in Japan, and very few 3rd party sucesses I'd say that last part is hardly true.  Especially considering console wise for N64 and GC had very little impact at all, it hasn't been Nintendo dominated at all.  Not even in the slightest.  Not sense the days of the SNES.  Only dominating franchise Nintendo has even had there in the time between that and DS has been Pokemon.  Nintendo's domination of the Japanese market (like the other markets) is something that has happened fairly recent. In better perspective, not really until 2006 and 2007 did you see this domination, although DS was doing well in 2005 in Japan. 

Also PSP didn't release that long after DS in Japan.  They've been on the market for about the same time.  So yes it is not only shocking it's simply amazing how quickly the market turned around.  Shows how strong of a release the DS was in the Japanese market. 

 

clearly, when I said "dominated if not monopolized"... I meant in the handheld market.

 

nobody in their right mind would consider N64 and GC for any of those terms. ;)

 

 

Nobody in their right mind would say nintendo "dominated if not monoplizied" in the handheld market before this gen because the only response would be a "Duh".  It's not hard when you have virtually no competitor. 

So no, I have no idea what you were saying now haha.  No seriously.  I guess if you were trying to say that dominance carried over (which at first it didn't) then I guess that would make it not shocking, although DS didn't just automatically start off strong as it was coming off a weaker performing GBA.

really?? Do you really consider 80+ million unit sold in 3 and half, and over 16 million units sold in Japan as "weaker performing"??

The only reason DS sold more is because it's been in the market for much longer

 

look at the chart:

GBA: March 21, 2001 - the day DS is launched   (Gen: 3.5 years):   81 million
DS: November 21, 2004 - present (Gen: close to 6 years and counting): 130 million

 

 

Well I'm sorry but that's a blatant misinterpretation of the actual numbers.  Here's Japan sales for the GBA and DS by year:

GBA

2001- 4.54 million

2002- 3.54 million

2003- 3.81 million

2004- 2.99 million

2005- 1.26 million-

2006- 0.41 million

2007- 0.06 million

DS

2004- 1.39 million

2005- 4.23 million

2006- 8.40 million

2007- 7.21 million

2008- 4.02 million

2009- 4.25 million

Now I know you can do easy calculating.  There was no possible way whatsoever that GBA ever ever ever ever could have sold the amount that DS did even if it was able to be on the market as long.  Hell just 2 of the years that DS was out is almost enough to outsell the GBA completely.  Only year that GBA even did better comparatively was the first which is of course GBA was out 6 months and DS was out 1 and a half.  GBA just wasn't as large as the DS was in Japan.  While DS was able to put up sales like the original GB (but in a shorter time), GBA never had a chance to hit those numbers. Even if we did a normal progression for the 2005, 2006, and 2007 years, it probably would have only sold around the 21-22 million mark.  Which is better, but it isn't DS numbers.  But may have not hit that as the system was fading quickly in the region which is probably why DS came out so quick.  As you can see it peaked in its first year. 

So no what you said was not true.  Time was not the problem that hurt GBA nor the release of the Ds.  Issue was about everything else with it in Japan, or mainly the lack of big 3rd party support which is why I included not to many large selling 3rd party software.  Only big selling 1st party was Pokemon in the region.  It just didn't have the support or mainstream appeal that the GB or DS did.  Now if DS were able to stay on the market as long as the original GB, skies are the limit.  But we are already seeing a saturation point in sales which is why we are getting the 3DS later this year or early 2011.  Of coursre even it's "saturation" points are still largely above main years for the GBA.

GBA's big market was the American one and that was one of the main reasons it took the DS so long to ake off their (really not until 2007 and start hitting even bigger numbers the next 2 years).