Nem said:
Yakuzaice said:
| Nem said:
Did the PSP happen to be a launch week in one of the regions or perhaps a price cut? What i know is that the 3DS is outselling the DS. The rest is history. You can conclude from that that Sony lost its market, but not Nintendo.
I still think its dumb. No one in their right mind plays a proper game on their phones. The controls are atrocious, the concept is dumb.
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It had some game releases that month, but no price cut to my knowledge.
You can't really look at their market without also acknowledging the GBA which was a big reason for the slow start of the DS. The GBA shipped 13.03 million units to the Americas from the quarter the DS launched to the end of its life. In comparison the DS has only shipped 5.4 million since the 3DS launch. The GBA in January 2007 actually outperformed the 3DS in January 2013 (and Jan 2012 for that matter).
So that would mean we are looking at the Nintendo Market going from 18 million to 15.37 million in the first eight quarters of a new handhelds life in the Americas. This will look even worse in about a week considering the fact that the DS and GBA did 4.26 million in the ninth quarter, while shipments for the DS and 3DS are likely to be around a million in the Americas. That would bring it to 22.26 million versus 16.37 million after nine quarters. Even ignoring all that, how can you look at 316k Nintendo handheld sales in March 2013 compared to 652k in March 2007 and say there hasn't been a significant contraction in the market both Nintendo and overall? Just two years ago in March 2011 total handheld sales were 1046k, and the DS alone was 29% higher than the 3DS, DS, Vita, and PSP combined this past month.
This is a problem I've seen when discussing the 3DS. People just say "the 3DS is outselling the DS" without looking at the current sales for the 3DS and the historical sales trend of the DS. There was a very obvious DS sales cliff looming, and the 3DS sales weren't rising to meet it. Now it has already collided with the base of that cliff worldwide (as well as Japan and Europe individually), and it has literally just days before hitting it in the US.
The 3DS has already fallen behind the DS in Japan by a significant margin (a little over 3.4 million), and losing significant ground weekly after 112 weeks. After 107 weeks in Europe it has fallen behind by 3.08 million and the gap is widening by 60-100k a week. In the US, the 3DS still holds on to a very slight lead, but to say it is outselling the DS is disingenuous. In week 107 the 3DS sold 46k. In week 107 the DS sold 319k. Today is the end of week 108, where the DS did another 369k. Next saturday will mark week 109 for the 3DS. In that week the DS did 462k, and that is when the 3DS will have fallen behind the DS in the three major regions.
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You also forget that the economic landscape of today isnt the same as it was 6 years ago. The facts still show the market is there. The facts dont show people will completely forget their 3DS' and stick to phones. Why? Because the quality of the games and the playability is significantly inferior. The barrier of adoption is simply higher this time around, but the market is still there.
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Nintendo achieved its highest sales curve, highest profits, margins, whatever scale you want to use during the years where the world experienced a global economic downturn from late 2007, into 2008, into 2009, into 2010 (before Nintendo own downturn started to occur as the Wii fad began to come to a close) if anything, the economic situation today has beyond stabilized in that most global markets and economies have returned to so level of their pre downturn years.
