So, I just noticed that the DS roared past 80 million this week and seems to show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. So, how many units will it sell total? I'm going to go out there and say 120-125 million is possible. What do you think?

135-145 mill sound reasonable to anyone?

I think it depends on when/if a redesign occurs and when the Nintendo's next handheld is launched.

Someone was pointing out in another thread that it would be more likely for a household to have two portables than two consoles. From that I would extrapolate that conceivably the DS could outsell the PS2 by a healthy margin. (but like FishyJoe said, its all about when the next one comes out)

 On the other hand, the Ps2 had a high failure rate, and a 3 year waranty (I believe). Thus, a lot of people may have purchased new ones.

In addition, handheld gaming has never been close to console gaming in size, so a bit of the argument runs out there.

I believe the DS will make 110M, no matter when the new handheld is out. If there is a redesign and a few years left, it could come close to 150.

The DS can reach 90 million copies sold already by the end of this year!

I predict the DS will have sold almost 25-30 million copies this year alone.

2009 the DS will sell another 25 million
2010 the DS will slow down a bit because of saturation: 20 million
2011 the DS gets a redesign, the numbers still add up. Both versions combined will sell 30+ million
2012.. the next DS?
2013 DS still sell
2015.. Nintendo stops making the "old" DS


I say the DS will sell atleast 150-170 million till the next DS, and it will keep selling even when the next DS has arrived.. 200 million isn't impossible

DS was at 77.54m shipped through June 2008.

Nintendo is forecasting 101.1m DS shipped through March 2009.

My FY shipment projections go something like this:

The non italicized figures have already happened, and the FY5 figure is the projection for the year ending March 31 2009

That 80M should double pretty easily.

It could reach 100M by the end of the year, depending on shipments. I've long predicted it would reach 100M shipped by the end of 2008. Remember, it will do half of it's yearly sales in America and Europe over the last two months of the year.

With sales slower in Japan, 2009 could also see a DS redesign. But with sales so ridiculous in Europe, it will not see an all-new Nintendo handheld. That will be 2010 at the earliest.

And the thing to remember is that DS will still sell another 30M or so AFTER Nintendo's next handheld comes out. Look at NES, GB, PS1, PS2 and GBA.

So if the next handheld comes out holiday 2010, DS could be at 140M heading into those holidays, and add at least 30M beyond that. I guess I'd put 170M as my minimum.

With DS pushed to a GB-length lifespan, we'd be talking 250M+.

TheSource's above numbers also add up to about 170M

To put it in calender year terms, DS shipped 12.75M over the first six months of 2008, with almost 7M of that coming from April-June. If DS matched that 7M in July-September, which would be 84.5M LTD, it would be in shape for my 100M shipped by the end of calender 2008 prediction, which will require over 35M shipped for the calender year.