Aielyn said:
Shipments for FY2013 are expected to be 2.3 million. There is no reason to expect it to be "down another 61%" - for one thing, January sales of DS do not support this, as it's not down nearly that much. More importantly, December sales, where most of the units get sold, were only down about 39% last year, and the drop was even smaller for November, which is the second-biggest month. I don't expect Nintendo to keep the DS on the market to pass the PS2. I expect them to keep it on the market because the 3DS has that pesky minimum age and the DS is continuing to sell (outside of Japan, of course), not to mention that third parties are still making games for the system. As for Sony ending production... here you go: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/07/sony-confirms-production-end-for-playstation-2-worldwide/ |
You do realize that if they meet their expectations, that only puts DS shipments at 153.82. This will mean they only expect to ship ~150K in Q1 2013. That's 67% down YOY, which will probably stay flat or get worse for the rest of the year. Of course, that doesn't change that Sony predicted to ship ~3M PS2s for their FY, which given their shipment numbers and statements, it seems like they will make that prediction. Yet another deficit that the DS must make up for. Again, at the current rate of decline, it will take the DS 3 or more years to pass the PS2. Which won't happen, as Nintendo will take it off of shelves sometime in 2014, if not earlier.
As for the production link, I'm not sure how reliable the Guardian is, but I'm not going to believe it til either Sony confirms it with a statement (with final numbers) or if FY Q4 rolls around and there are only PS3 numbers. Until then, we only have the word of one paper report, that no one bothered to confirm with Sony, and contains grossly outdated shipment numbers.