Of course it'll never hit as many. 75-90 million-sellers IMO.

Maybe not, but if 3DS stays ahead through the end of this year -- and with the XL and New Super 2 on the way, it just might -- that will be very impressive.

OT: Sure, the 3DS probably won't have as many million sellers as the DS had, but I don't see the point to counting chickens before most of the eggs have even been laid.

This is absolutely the key factor in this comparison.

Give the 3DS 3 Christmas seasons and then try this again.

First, we must correct something:
- The article says that 3DS sold 5 million.... and that´s painfully wrong. 3DS has sold 18.440.000 so far, for 16 months on the market.
- Between 2004-2006 the original Ds (including all versions) sold 35.6 million units, but in a period that amounts 25 months.

That said, it´s hard to imagine the 3DS matching the original DS numbers, even considering that it won´t have two Holidays seasons until it reaches 25 months on the market. It probably won´t match, in the end of its run, the same sales of the Ds series. But it doesn´t need to sell 150 million to be sucessfull. If it sells more or less what Wii sold (around 95-100 million) at the end of its run it will be ok. The future lineup of games seems really good and will for sure bring new costumers.

Of course not! a lot of 1st and 3rd party wont be able to reach the 1 million milestone
-3rd party shovelware and casual titles wont sell on this thing anymore (just look at Carnival Games, Cooking Mama 4, Petz Fantasy, SpongeBob Squiggle Pants, Puppies 3D), this same games would have sold millions on the DS
- Movie/Tv shows games wont sell well either (Transformers, Happy Feet, Cartoon Network fighter, Cars 2), the hardware is expensive and parents can buy their kids the same games on the DS or iOS a loooooooooooot cheaper.

really, making lisenced games is not profitable anymore, and combining the sales of thos games, plus the casuals, and shovelware were a big chunk of the DS million sellers.

:P

I think we all know the 3DS won't be as successful as the DS. I don't think it'll sell as much HW or SW, and the main reason is cheap mobile/tablet games. It seems logical that the handheld market will revert back to game boy advance kind of sales henceforth - or it'll be completly irrelevant.

I'll qoute something I told Rol in a discussion:

And I think we have to remember that casuals are "lazy" to a degree. It's easy (and cheap!) to download any game to the iPad/Smartphone. Just look at the music industry: ppl are downloading everything, rarely buying a whole album - just listening to selected tracks. That's the casuals for you: selective. They want it cheap, easy and fast.

That's why 3DS won't be as successful as the DS, and that's why it won't have as many million sellers: casuals like shovelware; they don't really care about the game, they simply want sonething to do for 5 minutes.

The 3DS has a lot more against it that the DS did, Japan's Tsunami in it's release week, modern economy, smart phone's apps and more, yet, if Nintendo can manage to put 2 Mario Karts, 2 2D Mario games, a couple of pokemons and third party chips in, the 3DS can still pull amazing numbers, the more people buy the console the more software will be sold.

This analysis is interesting. But factors ranging from "long legs" to the fact that the many (if not most) of the biggest DS sellers came later in its life make it a bit of a spurious comparison.

That being said, changing tastes and the wide availability of digital games will make 130 million sellers impossible. Slightly more than half that (70 to 80) should be attainable.

Mike from Morgantown

Didnt SFIV ship a Million?

Honestly, Im quite shocked that the SW sales are that bad. Maybe NSMB2 will spur other SW sales on.

1.1 million