The cinderella story on Black Friday week was easily the PS3 as it put up amazing numbers, but the powerhouse story comes with the DS.  DS set a RECORD for November.  That is the single best week in November EVER.  1.7 million eclipsed DS's last year's numbers of just under 1.6 million and potential old records by PS1, GB, or GBA which Ninty mentioned they did the best in.  The most incredible thing about it is the week before it was at 750,000 and thus almost went up by a million units on the week. 

To give reference, PS2 only eclipsed the 1.7 million mark in one week ONCE in its lifetime (correct me if I'm wrong).  DS has only eclipsed it 4 times in its lifecycle (two times last holiday season and two times in 2007).  One of those weeks was it's largest week ever and indeed the biggest single week in gaming history where it was able to put up just over 2 million units. 

I mean this is a big deal.  Nothing like this has ever happened before on such a large magnitude.  DS has been relatively down all year and then just this huge explosion over Black Friday. 

Questions we need to ask are these.  One what caused the huge explosions over Black Friday?  I'd argue of course that the bundles helped and some big sofware helped.  I'd also argue DSi in its first holiday season.  Second, how is a console that has been on the market for 5 years able to get one of it's biggest weeks ever that late in its cycle?  Finally, just how big can DS be for the rest of the year. 

I'd also like to say that this is quite an impressive feat and simply incredible how Nintendo has been able to keep this up.  I don't think there is much doubt in my mind anymore that DS is the biggest system to hit gaming and is selling like it consistently.  The limit to what this system can end up selling is just going to depend on how long til its successor it appears.  Until then it will be the hottest gaming system for a while to come. 

What do we make from this -

"DS is God"

Even more godly than... *gulp*... PlayStation 2.

How do you even dare say that, filthy mouth... :P

We make that the DS is awesome and.. that's pretty much it. It's the reason for everything that's happening to it.

I'm pretty sure a lot of those where DS lite which were on sale for $99 at a lot of places during Black Friday week.

I don't mind the DS ruling the world. I still have the original phat model and love it dearly.

Quite a few of them were actually sold used by Gamestop so the real numbers of DS units sold is well above 1 million.

The DS deserves it. It's probably one of my favorites of all time for all systems including consoles.

I think we get DS2 in November 2010 in Japan, and April 2011 in the west...but it should be nearing 140 million by the Japanese launch of DS2 and from momentum alone. If third parties/Nintendo continue to support DS it should have no trouble making a run at 200m even with hw in decline.

So far its gone like this:

FY 3/2005:  5.27m

FY 3/2006: 11.46m

FY 3/2007: 23.56m

FY 3/2008: 30.31m

FY 3/2009: 31.18m (all time record - remember N64/Genesis came in around 30m in their entire lifetimes)

Lifetime DS Shipments through September 2009: 113.48m

FY 3/2010: 30m projected

FY 3/2011: 25m? (DS demand is going to be strong in the west for at least another year. Japan will be down if DS2 releases)

FY 3/2012: 18m (DS demand way down in west with DS2, price cut offsets it)

FY 3/2013: 10m (this is about what PS3 shipped last year)

FY 3/2014: 5m (as viable as PS2 is right about now)

FY 3/2015: 2m (long tail)

FY 3/2016: 0.6m (dead)

That'd be about 192 million

What it means is that when a system's sales drop for a bit, and people cry "saturation!", they really have no idea what they're babbling about.

When DS2 launches, they better not take the predecessor off the shelfs as it could top 200 Million in the future.