In the hardware data for the week ending May 6 2007 DS passed SNES LTD sales.  During the course of the 1990's, the SNES sold ~ 16.7 million units in Japan.  This week, after 30 months on sale (using 1 month after launch day as month one) DS reached that level, and surpassed it with enormous weekly sales.  The SNES had sold the vast majority of it's Japanese consoles through 1996, meaning the DS is selling over 2x faster (SNES was released in Japan in 1990).  Considering DS sales are nearly 3 million in Japan just for 2007, it seems quite likely that by the end of 2007, the DS will pass both NES and PS1 LTD sales in Japan.  Additionally, if Nintendo allocates supply correctly, DS may pass PS2 LTD sales in Japan, even as PS2 continues to sell decently (of the PS2 17 million unit lead on DS, only a 5.2 million unit remains since both have been on sale). 

 With DS likely to catch & surpass every console in late 2007 or early 2008, the ultimate showdown will be catching Game Boy in Japan.  At 31.3 million, it would likely take at least 2-3 more years to catch Gameboy in Japan - selling at current rates.  Whether or not there are enough people in Japan for that to happen, remains to be seen.

 

 

nice way to go DS!

TheSource said: With DS likely to catch & surpass every console in late 2007 or early 2008, the ultimate showdown will be catching Game Boy in Japan. At 31.3 million, it would likely take at least 2-3 more years to catch Gameboy in Japan - selling at current rates. Whether or not there are enough people in Japan for that to happen, remains to be seen.

I think the only "if", is whether Nintendo will release a new model before it passes the GB - which we no longer consider the DS (and start counting all over again).

Its pretty amazing how far the DS has come - from its original humble showing, and people questioning "two screens?" at E3. 

 

I thought the two screens was cool from the beginning. My only question was why Nintendo was pretending they were going to have two portables.

Yeah, that is great. However, I always see the DS having an advantage, seeing as 1-3 can be found in some homes, as opposed to ANY single console, which is usually one per home. I always find it an unreasonable comparison. Just my 2 cents.

What's this supposed to mean? http://www.mcvuk.com/news/26975/DS-Lite-sales-hit-10m-in-Japan

It means ds lite hit 10 million..but DS original and ds lite together (and they are the same except for cosmetics) are approaching 17 million units combined.

just wait until the nintendo start integrating the Ds and Wii with each other - I predict the wii will have some sort of external storage device, may be a hard drive or bigger sd cards and it it will become a DS hotspot where you can download latest DS demos to your wii and play them on your DS.

 It's the next obvious step - Nintendos been trying this since GBA and Gamecube but now technology allows it, ds hotspots existed way before the lauch of the wii and it makes perfect sense to include plans to do this when designing the Wii.  It was Miyamoto after that said "we have so many plans for the Wii but will release them very slowly cos we dont want to intimidate the users too much at first".

 

They'll be no stopping the DS and Wii Sales when this happens.

gawalls said: just wait until the nintendo start integrating the Ds and Wii with each other - I predict the wii will have some sort of external storage device, may be a hard drive or bigger sd cards and it it will become a DS hotspot where you can download latest DS demos to your wii and play them on your DS.

 i like the sounds of that

gawalls said: just wait until the nintendo start integrating the Ds and Wii with each other - I predict the wii will have some sort of external storage device, may be a hard drive or bigger sd cards and it it will become a DS hotspot where you can download latest DS demos to your wii and play them on your DS.  It's the next obvious step - Nintendos been trying this since GBA and Gamecube but now technology allows it, ds hotspots existed way before the lauch of the wii and it makes perfect sense to include plans to do this when designing the Wii.  It was Miyamoto after that said "we have so many plans for the Wii but will release them very slowly cos we dont want to intimidate the users too much at first".   They'll be no stopping the DS and Wii Sales when this happens.

Haven't the demo dl been announced? And use of external HDD via USB? Or am i wrong here. It's just that date is still missing. Connectivity between GC and GBA was just more like a trick to get people buy "GBA versions" of the GC game. Although four swords adventure was a good example, how GC and GBA could work together. Well, Wii is a console "where something happens every day", so releasing updates one at a time, keeps just the console more intresting. Just like with VC, it keeps people happy with releasing a couple games in a week.