Nintendo 3DS reaches 5 million sales in Japan - Breaks the record

[UncleScrooge]

Oh that DS graph has been cut off just at the best possible moment

Sales have been decent so far but its sales pace is really underwhelming compared to what the DS did in 2006. I remember the sales going up and down like crazy because they couldn't keep up with demand. It was really common back in 2006 to see sales of 200k units whenever Nintendo shipped enough. And 300k wasn't out of the question either when a big game was released. And nowadays people get excited over 90k units when a big game releases, haha.

Nintendo needs to bring back its "Training" games. Brain Training 1+2 sold what? Almost 50m units I think. And then there was English Training, Face Training, etc. and all of them sold millions of units. They also need a 3DS Lite this year with more mass market appeal. And they need to bring out some new mass market IP's like Brain Training and Wii Sports. You can't grow just by releasing new versions of your existing games.

Early DS / Wii era Nintendo was a company I gladly supported. They kept talking about how to include older people, mothers, families, casual gamers. There were stories about the Wii being given to patients in hospitals and retirement homes. Man, those were the times. I really felt special for supporting this company all along. And today Nintendo flat out refuses to include all the people that made their platforms sell so well. It's a shame, really. And Nintendo won't get out of its financial trouble with their handheld business going from 30m / year to 20m while losing money on the hardware.