kirby007's thread was locked due to an arguably inappropriate thread title, so I'm recreating it and providing a little something extra to consider.
How big a deal do you believe the new Nintendo DSi will be? How big will its launch turn out?
The DSi is launching in Japan for $20 more than the DS Lite's launch.
The DS Lite launched at ¥16,800, which translates at present to $170.57 USD.
The DSi is going to launch at ¥18,900, exchanging to $191.86 USD.
Additionally, people paid as much as ¥40,000 for the DS Lite when it launched (over $400 USD).
In light of all this, I highly doubt price will be a concern. The questions are (1) is the market too saturated already, and (2) will people see the DSi as being worth buying another DS?
I believe (1) the market is pretty heavily saturated, but only about 1/6 of Japan's total population currently owns a DS, so there's still an enormous amount of people still available, and (2) I'm going to be buying a DSi even though I already own three DS Lites between my wife and me. And I'm a western gamer, in a culture that sees the DS mostly as meant for kids. Japan doesn't look at it that way.
In the other thread, most people were predicting about 200k for launch week. I believe that is grossly underestimating. The PSP 3000 just released in Japan to 170k sales, and by the software numbers, a very large portion of those were people who already owned PSPs (if only 125k software units were sold, and 170k hardware units, and no software is packaged with the hardware, then one would assume therefore that at least 45k of those sales were people who already owned a PSP and games previously).
Lastly, factor in this video. The improvements seem pretty big, especially to a Japanese market.
(note: don't discuss the video in this thread. This thread is only to discuss the DSi's launch potential. Discuss the video here).
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=46276
SW-5120-1900-6153
