And probably plenty more will eb announced for the second part of the year

The thing is that I do hope that 2010 will be better then 2009.. I dunno, this year was pretty decent, tough no game stood out that much except GTA:CTW that went multiplatform later on, and TLoZ:ST. It would be so amazing if nintendo would announce a remake of SSB as a last hurrah for the DS

Don't forget DQIX and DQVI and Lufia DS too...

I plan to buy the DSi XL. I already have a DS Lite and my wife has my old DS. I think quite a few of the people saying that the DSi XL is going to bomb are also the same people in a few months who will pick one up for themselves once they see it.

As for games, this past year was pretty bad. I bought less games this last year then I have any other year since Mario Kart DS was released. It's kinda sad. I was hoping for more games like GTA China Town Wars, Retro Game challenge etc to get released. Not that I didn't buy a lot of DS games this year... just not as many as I did the 2 prior years.

2010 NA and/or PAL releases:
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, Miles Edgeworth, Blood of Bahamut, Final Fantasy Gaiden, Infinite Space, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, Glory of Heracles, Inazuma Eleven, Dementium II (plus the ones which are not confirmed yet, but very likely, such as Dragon Quest IX , Professor Layton 3, Professor Layton 4, Luminous Arc 3)

2010 Japan releases (some of them are also possible NA/PAL releases):
Ni no Kuni/The Another World, Dragon Quest VI, Golden Sun DS, Professor Layton 5, Okamiden, Last Window, Estpolis: The Lands Cursed by the Gods, WarioWare D.I.Y.

The biggest hits will obviously be Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver, Prof. Layton 3/4 in NA/PAL, DQVI, Prof. Layton 5 and probably Ni no Kuni in Japan.

There will of course be hundreds more new releases as well and they will bring some sleeper hits which only very few (if any) people predicted prior to their releases, similar to successes such as Tomodachi Collection (Japan), Cooking Mama (NA/PAL), Transformers: Autobots/Decepticons (NA) or Puzzler Collection (PAL).

Back to the original question: Will 2010 be its weakest year in hardware sales? Yes, I think so, but is this a surprise with the sales it had until 2009?

It can't be the weakest because to be the weakest it need to undersell 2005's 11 million and I don't think that is possible.

Well it's time to hang it up, nintendo and DS is d0omsed just like 09', 08', and errr...wait

No, I don't use WoW's script. I was just too lazy to read all the posts this time and read only the TC's posts. I didn't even know the DS "only" sold 11 million units in 2005.

So let me rephrase my answer:
"Back to the original question: Will 2010 be its weakest year in hardware sales? Hell, no!! Reasoning: Read Rol's first post in this thread (and make sure to switch off user ignore script)." Better?

Honestly, I don't even care if 1 or 50 million units will be sold next year, but I posted here because I care if someone claims about a system "no software next year" as morenoingrato did in this thread. It always baffles me when even members of a site like this don't know about future lineups of a system they own.

Hm, I never tried out this user ignore script. Maybe I should use it in the next Heavy Rain thread...

Well, I plan to buy a DSiXL -- so that's one more sale than in past years.

Seriously though, at some point sales will drop -- but not to the 2005 levels.

Mike from Morgantown

i think a 20 million + year next year sounds reasonable.

There are several games coming, and as Rol said, is impossible to be the weakest year