Quote:Courtesy of Media-Create, we have the most recent sales figures from Japan.
Overall sales for the period saw a huge dropoff from previous weeks, likely due to the annual end of summer shift and a dearth of compelling new software offerings. In fact, the only new title to make it into the top 10 was the latest Bleach (anime) game for the PSP. Nintendo continued to be held up in the charts on the strength of their handhelds, with their brain-centric "non-games" again exhibiting impressive staying power. Word of mouth must really be fueling the success of these simple and intuitive titles, each of which is steadily approaching the 500k mark in total units sold. As if it hasn't been said before, these "games" are quite the phenomenon. It will be fascinating to observe their popularity once the localized versions hit the western markets.
Also maintaining their chart residence was Jump Super Stars and Sega's hit Mushiking. It should be noted that Sega has recently announced that they are hard at work on a DS version of the beetle-battler, with a target release date in December. Wonder if it will utilize Nintendo WiFi Connection? Nothing is for sure yet, but you can bet it will only serve to reinforce the obviously monstrous following the series has garnered. As for whether the series will make it out of Japan, it should be noted that toy maker Hasbro intends to release the original collectible card-based form of the game in the U.S. If the experiment proves successful, the west may very well see the genesis of their own Mushiking craze. Now back to the numbers:
No. System Title Publisher
1 PS2 Tales of Legendia 51,676 Namco
2 DS Brain Training 33,745 Nintendo
3 DS Gentle Brain Exercises 31,445 Nintendo
4 PS2 Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY: Generation of C.E. 27,598 Bandai
5 PSP BLEACH: Heat the Soul 2 14,546 SCE
6 DS JUMP Super Stars 21,826 Nintendo
7 PS2 World Soccer Winning Eleven 9 20,821 Konami
8 PS2 NARUTO: Uzumaki Ninden 17,381 Bandai
9 GBA The King of Beetle Mushiking: Greatest Champion 12,562 Sega
10 PS2 Winning Post 7 10,731 Koei
On the hardware side... well, in recent months the DS hasn't needed any significant new releases to sell a healthy amount. Nothing has changed as sales actually increased a bit from last week despite no significant new software. Here is hoping that many of these new DS owners are buying up quality recent releases like Konami's Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Lost in Blue... but more likely they are purchasing Brain Training for Adults. New customers and new markets indeed.
Meanwhile, the GBA Micro is just about to land...Here are the figures for this week:
No. Console Week Sales Last Week Sales Year Sales
1 Nintendo DS 58,579 57,313 1,578,877
2 PlayStation 2 26,282 27,161 1,376,124
3 PlayStation Portable 22,610 20,322 1,193,086
4 Game Boy Advance SP 11,081 11,144 505,561
5 GameCube 2,388 2,586 153,319
6 Game Boy Advance 538 652 18,520
7 Xbox 198 130 10,175
Conclusive evidence that indeed two screens ARE better than one!
Screw Mario, Brain Training is what's up.
It'd be nice to see stuff like that come out here too...
No it's not :D. The evidece just says the title of this thread, that the DS is selling very well. The why is another matter, but it could be anything from the price to Nintendo's name to the games available. It also might have to do with the touch screen.
However, I have yet to see a single good use for two screens that one really wide screen can't do.
Quote:However, I have yet to see a single good use for two screens
It's cool. You don't need a reason aside from that.
Saving money, DJ. One normal small screen and one small touchscreen is surely quite a bit cheaper than one large touchscreen...
I know I know, but he said the two screens actually has some purpose aside from that :D.
Hmm... an idea for an ad campaign? That's about all I can think of otherwise...
The idea of the dual screens is lost on developers currently, they're afraid of trying anything too radical. The DS has seperate CPU's for each screen, meaning that both screens are capable of displaying entirely different gaming engines. A 2-D Metroid that you play with the D-Pad could easily display a Metroid Hunters-esque first person display on the other screen, let's say the touch screen.
So you're controlling Samus with the d-pad on the top screen and using your stylus to look, aim and fire. L jumps. Now you can only travel in a straight line, yes. But you would have all the control and acrobatic mechanics of the 2-D Metroid games with all the pinpoint accuracy, presentation and FPS elements of the Prime series at the same time. Most enemies would appear on a 2-D plane, directly in your path at whatever height, but some enemies would have a full 3-D range of movement (especially bosses) that would mean you would have to use the FPS screen to fire in 3-D space as the enemy moves around. But the normal 2-D enemies you can use the 2-D screen and the stylus to aim and fire while jumping around the room. It would be frikin awesome.
To get an idea what I mean, pop in any 2-D Metroid game in to the DS and imagine the touch screen displaying everything you see in a 3-D FPS. The only downside is that Up will be right and down will be left though that could be worked around I think. I think people would accept that 'right' moves you 'forward'
The picture in America is not as good...
http://www.cube-europe.com/news.php?nid=8221
Quote:News: August American Sales Figures!
Posted by Tphi - Sep 13th 2005 13:50
Head inside for the US hardware and software sales figures for the month of August...
First off, the hardware charts, where the PS2 again reigns supreme this month. Interestingly, the GBA is beating the PSP, though both systems are selling far more than the DS. Xbox figures are starting to tail off (presumably due to the 360's launch on the horizon), while the Cube languishes in last place.
Here are the hardware figures in detail:
1. PS2 = 253,000
2. GBA = ~180,000
3. PSP = 167,000
4. XBX = 134,000
5. NDS = ~100,000
6. GCN = 53,000
And now the software charts, again largely dominated by the PS2, and to a lesser extent, the Xbox. The Cube version of multi-format Madden NFL 06 was the only Cube title in the top 25, though Pokémon Emerald and Advance Wars: Dual Strike sold well on GBA and DS respectively.
Nintendogs saved Nintendo's bacon, with all three titles high in the charts, despite only launching towards the end of the month. Combined, the three version's total sales equal around 210,000 copies. Here's the top 25 in full:
1. PS2. Madden NFL 06 - 1,461,380
2. XBX. Madden NFL 06 - 682,665
3. PS2. NCAA Football 06 - 121,553
4. XBX. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2: Summit Strike - 94,889
5. NDS. Nintendogs: Dachshund and Friends - 81,979
6. GBA. Pokemon Emerald - 81,239
7. GCN. Madden NFL 06 - 80,939
8. NDS. Nintendogs: Labrador and Friends - 67,285
9. XBX. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down - 62,273
10. NDS. Nintendogs: Chihuahua and Friends - 60,463
11. GBA. Dragon Ball GT: Transformation - 60,141
12. XBX. NCAA Football 06 - 59,063
13. XBX. Darkwatch - 51,952
14. PS2. Lego Star Wars - 50,557
15. PS2. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down - 47,844
16. NDS. Advance Wars: Dual Strike - 44,293
17. PSP. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition - 41,980
18. PS2. Destroy All Humans! - 40,988
19. PS2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - 37,796
20. PS2. Medal of Honor: European Assault - 36,127
21. PS2. Darkwatch - 35,689
22. PS2. Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition - 35,507
23. PS2. Fantastic Four - 35,327
24. PS2. Flatout - 34,462
25. PS2. God of War - 31,647
Nintendogs excepted (that's five days of sales...). Geist, for instance, supposedly only sold 10,000 copies in August...
lazy, we've talked about this before. I actually mentioned that's nothing that a single really large screen couldn't do. Just split the image. The one difference? One really large screen could also be used AS one really large screen.
Also, it turns out that the processors aren't hardwired to each screen. They can use whatever screen they want and yes, a single processor can control both at once.
It's just the programming that decides exactly how each is handled and what image goes where.
I know I mentioned all this before...
One GC game... it's Madden... and it was outsold 18:1 by the PS2 version and 8.5:1 by the X-Box version. Ouch.
The GBA is odd, though... 180,00 sales, only one game in the top 25, and it sold 80,000 copies? What were the other 100,000 people buying... lots of random stuff? Kind of strange.
There's two GBA games. Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.
Having one (16:9 vertical) screen with two CPU's to control the split would be a bitch to program for. It can be done, yes. But when you factor that in to one giant touch screen you wouldn't have a launch at $150.
Yes, everything I mentioned can be done on one screen, but you'd be playing on a 300+ system that would be difficult to program for. Now, what I want to see is developers doing the kind of stuff i'm thinking of.
Also, to a much smaller extent, the idea of one touch screen and one 'viewing' screen is a good limiter that keeps developers focused as well as the actual game player. If both 'sides' were touch sensitive people would get confused very quickly; I already watch people tap both screens in frustration until they realize that the bottom screen is a touch screen. Once they discover that, it becomes really conducive and fun for them. If you had one giant touch screen, people would never know when you can touch something and when you cant.
Quote:There's two GBA games. Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z.
Yeah, you're right ... says something about the GBA market, doesn't it... :(
Slowly and surely, the GBA will be phased out. But its huge game library and the Micro will keep it afloat long after Nintendo stops developing for it. Especially when the Micro becomes the staple platform and can be found new for under 50 bucks, probably within a 2 or 3 year span.
This makes me wonder about the DS. If it sustains it's current success, will Nintendo ever release a new Gameboy?
Ah the Micro... pathetic system. It's more expensive than an SP, right now, and does LESS. But, we've all raved on about how stupid that system is. Why didn't they just put a sharper screen on the SP anyway?
And, the idea that people would get "confused" if the whole thing was a touch screen sounds a bit too much like the mac user's excuse for that one button mouse. If only one part can be interacted with via touch, then it should be pretty apparent. "Oh, I guess they don't let you touch stuff in the menu", that's all. Plus, I'm pretty sure they would add touch features to all areas anyway given half a chance.
And lastly, difficult to program for eh? I can see that, but at the same time it wouldn't be that hard to get around in MOST situations so long as the system, or the dev kit programming software had a built in way to "split" an image that could just be "called" whenever it was needed. I ALSO said this before, but the system already has to be programmed to determine which image goes to which screen or, if the image is "linked", where the whole thing starts and ends (for example, the trampoline minigames in SM64DS). What I'm saying here is the challenge of splitting the image on one screen is pretty much identical to the challenge of splitting the image across two screens, what with programming languages being where they are now.
The Micro is, according to Nintendo, selling "better than expected". No numbers were available though.
Quote:Ah the Micro... pathetic system. It's more expensive than an SP, right now, and does LESS. But, we've all raved on about how stupid that system is. Why didn't they just put a sharper screen on the SP anyway?
These things are said... and are mostly true... but then I look at the thing and see how cool it looks and think 'if I had the money, why not'... of course I don't, but even so, it's a very nice looking piece of hardware, undeniably. But yes, it doesn't replace your GBA or SP or GBC and/or GB Player, for that backwards compatibility. But even so... it's cool looking, it's really small, etc... :)
Quote:The Micro is, according to Nintendo, selling "better than expected". No numbers were available though.
The Famicom one looks very cool.
Oh, I didn't make it clear, but the hardest thing is really just having two seperate images handled by two processors, namely the part where you get that vital shared data flowing between them with good synch. Once you get that down, splitting a single screen, splitting the resulting single image across two screens, or combining the resulting two seperate images into a single one (side by side or "overlayed") is a pretty simple affair.