DS becomes fastest selling console in UK history

[Great Rumbler]

The DS launch seems to have gone down pretty well in the UK. Sales projections just in have the DS as selling 87,000 units in the first week making it the fastest selling console in UK history (either home or handheld).

Compare this to the UK GBA launch week which had an estimated 67,000 unit sales, while GBA SP managed 47,000. However, before today Nintendo's Gamecube was the fastest selling console over a launch week with 69,000 units mainly due to a low launch price for a home console.

The DS launched on Friday and currently has 12 titles in the UK top 40 with Mario 64 DS at number 4.

Not bad.

Cube-Europe

[OB1]

Nice. But that's really weak compared to how quickly systems sell in Japan and the U.S.

[Great Rumbler]

It still sold more than any other consoles ever released on the UK have. Besides, this is only the UK, not the whole of Europe.

[OB1]

Japan is also small.

[A Black Falcon]

But it's a lot bigger than England...

[OB1]

Still...

Guess which console is in second place for fastest-selling now?

[A Black Falcon]

Oh which one, Mr. PSP-fan?

Seriously, there's a line between acknowledging success and outright rooting for success that you crossed a long time ago, I think.

[OB1]

The Gamecube. Before the DS came out the GC was the fastest-selling console in UK history. So really, it's not the greatest news ever.


And again, it cracks me up whenever a biased Nintendo fanboy calls me anything but a Nintendo fanboy. I don't think I need to list out the reasons again.

[A Black Falcon]

Heh, sometimes you call me a Nintendo fanboy and other times a PC games fanboy, which is it... :)

[OB1]

Both. With consoles you only like Nintendo. And PC, well, PC. I like all games for all platforms. To you and other fanboys, the lack of real bias equals fanboyism for whatever side you feel like mentioning at any given time.

[Private Hudson]

OB1 you obviously want Nintendo to fail and go under!!!

[OB1]

Absolutely! I hate those bastards and their crappy games. Especially the Metroid series. And Zelda. I hate them.

Even though I'm the biggest fan of Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker here.

Hate 'em!!

[Great Rumbler]

Japan is also small.

Maybe, but they buy as many total consoles on average as the United States and the ENTIRETY of Europe, not just the UK.

And just so you know Japan has a population of 127 million, the UK 61 million, and the US around 290 million.

[A Black Falcon]

Europe as a whole, though, has ~450 million... but it's not exactly the #1 territory for console games. It's probably those prices...

OB1: You like some things Nintendo does for sure, but you sure cheer on the PSP every single chance you get! As I said, it's one thing to say 'The PSP is a pretty nice console with some good looking games' (and perhaps 'you should have seen it would do this well') and another entirely to say 'Ha-ha, the PSP is doing so much better than you thought stupid PSP haters" and 'PSP will beat the DS a lot faster than you think" over and over...

As for me, certainly there are good games on all the consoles. But I only have the money for one of the major consoles, and Nintendo's that one. So I can't say as much about the other two systems, obviously... and anyway, in this case the DS deserves to win more than the PSP does. The PSP is just a PS2 in a small box while the DS is actually different... and handheld games ARE different from home-console ones, OB1! :)

[OB1]

I'm just saying that for the UK's population they do not buy a whole lot of games. Which isn't surprising, really, considering how expensive games are over there.

[A Black Falcon]

I just said that. :)

That also explains Korea... consoles are expensive there, so PC gaming dominates.

[OB1]

I posted before I saw your post.

Again, your fanboy rants crack me up. I cheer on the PSP because it's an awesome handheld with some really great games.

And yes, tech-wise it is pretty much just a portable PS2. And as I said in another thread, the best games on the system are perfect portable games. MG Acid, Wipeout Pure, and especially Lumines. Racing games, strategy games, puzzle games. And on the DS we have Mario 64 w/o analog controls. Which one's the better portable game?

[A Black Falcon]

Racing games have never been a strength of handhelds... nor have strategy games, though a few have done well. Puzzle games of course have.

As for Mario 64, some of that game is in longer parts but it is somewhat compartmentalized... each star is a seperate mission and between missions you save and can quit... not ideal, but no worse than a portable Zelda title (even one designed for the GB).

MG Acid, Wipeout Pure, and especially Lumines. Racing games, strategy games, puzzle games. And on the DS we have Mario 64 w/o analog controls.

Yeah, that's definitely a good summary of the current DS lineup. Yup.

It's gotten a few more titles, you know...

[OB1]

Oh okay, I forgot the one other game worth having. My bad.

Racing games are perfect for handhelds, they've just never been that successful for the same reason they weren't that big during the pre-32-bit era: the technology sucked. People like 3D racing games.

[A Black Falcon]

Micro Machines worked great on GB... but that's the only one I've played that was great. But yes, racing is one of the genres that benefits most from 3D. Both DS and PSP should show that.


Oh yeah... the PSP has been delayed for a few months in Europe.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/03/14/...20420.html

[OB1]

Most likely because they're focusing on the US launch. They care more about us than they do for Europe. So more systems here = less systems for them.

[A Black Falcon]

And even so there's only a million units for North America at launch.

[OB1]

"only"?? That's just the first shipment, and you can bet your ass that it'll sell through in an instant. In contrast, the DS sold 500,000 units in its first week or so of release, which was 90% of what Nintendo shipped. So one million at launch is even better than what Nintendo did for the DS. http://ds.ign.com/articles/569/569826p1.html

[A Black Falcon]

But Nintendo also sold 800,000 GBAs that week... :)

[OB1]

We're talking about launch system availability here.

[A Black Falcon]

But 'Sony vs. Nintendo in handhelds' includes the GBA too. You can't ignore it. But yes, Nintendo didn't have enough DSes available either.

[OB1]

Oh so the GBA launched that same week too? Interesting.

[A Black Falcon]

As in, when comparing Sony's marketshare/sales to Nintendo's, leaving out the GBA is only done if you want to bias things towards Sony, not if you want an accurate picture of comparitive sales, I'd say.

[Dark Jaguar]

Huh...

So it would seem there is a confusion of arguments here... typical...

Okay, ABF means to compare current day Nintendo sales of ALL their portables to Sony's, whether the system is new or not.

OB1 means to compare the sales of Nintendo's DS to Sony's PSP exclusively, all outside that is irrelevent.

So um... maybe you two should stop arguing until you agree to what you are arguing about at least? :D You know, just a suggestion...

[A Black Falcon]

So um... maybe you two should stop arguing until you agree to what you are arguing about at least? You know, just a suggestion...

That always seems to be one of the hardest things to agree on, sadly...

[OB1]

Actually I was specifically responding to this post:

And even so there's only a million units for North America at launch.

A post that HE made, and I responded to. We were talking about how many units each company was able to ship out at launch. Then ABF changed the subject, which he always does.