Game companies seriously neglect female gamers. The Sims sold 16 million copies at a high price(it didn't go down quickly like most games) not to mention massive amounts of expansions, and that was mainly because it appealed to girls and even adult women. There is huge potential for profit if they can increase sales among females.

Would she really like that, or are you just secretly hoping she would?

My mom bought a DS for herself, and she's never bought a video game system for herself in her life. Not only that, she actually already owns as many games as I do. I buy the Mario Kart, Mario Bros, Metroid, and Castlevania games, and she gets Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, Tetris, and Clubhouse Games. I think the DS definetly has the potential to be the phenomenon in Europe and US that it is in Japan. NOA and NOE should spend more on advirtising directed at women.

I'm guessing they will target new users more aggressively as soon as demand stabilizes. As it is, they can pretty close to sell everything they make. These new market segments are like the ace in the hole that Nintendo can pull out at any time.

Iwata on repeating the Japanese market expansion in the west. Q24 You mentioned some negative observations of past DS sales in North America. How do you see the current condition? A24 One year ago, my observation was, "the delay was obvious." However, today's observation is, "the change is starting to take place." For example, according to NPD research company in the U.S., more than 500,000 DS hardware were sold in March alone. Selling any hardware more than 500,000 in March in the U.S. is not a bad figure at all, and we should not be pessimistic. On the other hand, Japan, which traditionally has only half the market size of the Americas, as a result of successfully expanding the gaming population, was able to sell 600,000 or 700,000 DS hardware in months which were not in the holiday sales season. From such a perspective, it can be said that the U.S. is merely duplicating the good sales which have been achieved in traditional game business or before the actual gaming population expansion starts. Having said that, however, the sales in the Americas are far better than one year ago, so it is improving. We are also noticing what the U.S. people often call "early signs." In many different places, something unprecedented is actually taking place in the U.S. People who would never talk about video games are actually discussing DS and Wii or actually touching them. These are the early symptoms for the market to change. So, we have the early signs. But the real market change has not taken place yet. When the change has occurred, the Japanese market doubled its size. I think that same thing can happen in the U.S. We have not gone that far yet but we are listening to the earth rumbling. We have come to that stage. That is why I am saying, "we really want to make it happen," and "If we can make the change to happen, Nintendo has the huge potential to make a great leap in Americas." And, because we would like to surely take this great chance, I said, "we would like to pay special attention to the U.S. market this year." http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/070427qa/05.html

And they never will because they are bound by conventional thinking.

Much like the US Government right now (ooh did i say that? yes i did.)

John Lucas 

The US DS penetration wouldn't quite be like the one in Japan, aside from the fact that Japanese are much more gadget mad.  Japanese spend so much time on the subway!  That's time to kill, what's more perfect than a DS.  Here in the US... other than NYC, Boston, plus a few other cities, most people drive.

 That being said, you can say that the DS has come of age in the US when you regularly see people playing the NY Times Crosswords on the DS in a NY subway instead of doing a paper and pencil one.  (the NY Times Crosswords for the DS apparently is coming out soon)

Actually, have people start seeing adults play the DS on NY subway?  I don't live in NY, but somehow if somebody's doing that late at night the chances of his DS getting robbed seem pretty high. 

He leveled up your guys

Hey, I can see an ultrasound game/attachment coming on :)

You click on where you want the fetus to move to... then you make spinning actions with the stylus to turn it around...