Game sales down 10%, DS Lite to sell 500k units in 10 days

Unites? Units? Typo?

I wonder how many of those 500k are people who owned the ds upgrading...

Gee, I gotta geta DS lite.

I was at a local Gamestop on Sunday and saw two parents buying the DS Lite and NSMB for their kid. The saleswoman almost got them to buy Brain Age by telling them it was educational.

I wonder how many parents bought Brain Age to help their young kids? And I wonder how many young kids will actually play it?

how come when nintendo copies ipod no one says anything but dont let another company 'borrow' from nintendo cuz thats when all hell breaks loose
whooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaa

hey nintendo fanboys, i want to see you defend against my claim that nintendo ripped off apple!!!

I got mine on monday with brainTraining for 129.99 from Circuit City.

I kills the PSP, I never thought I would get one. I can't wait for opera browser for surfing on the couch!

yeah, i picked a lite up this monday with nsmb and brain age. seriously, i can't put it down when I have downtime. I didn't think it would be that good of a system! Hopefully Wii does the same...

I have to say... If school were more like brain age (fun little rewards and a teacher who can entertain as well as teach) then more kids would be interested in school, And, as for the sales numbers... I expected that with the kind of sales it got in Japan and how popular it is.... NSMB is also a huge success and will obviously bring a slightly older crowed to the ds so they can go back to what THEY played when they were 7-15. It seems to me like Nintendo knows exactly what they are doing and how they are going to do it... its just a matter of a bunch of peices falling into place.

Gonna hold out for a black one...

I'll admit it. I bought a DS Lite. I had to experience it.
I also bought New Super Mario Bros., Metroid Prime Hunters, Brain Age and RE Deadly Silence. I have received Advance Wars Duel Strike from GameFly.

I like the DS Lite. It's a great example of industrial design done right. From that standpoint, my only complaint is with the right shoulder button, I keep pressing it every time I turn the system on and off.

New Super Mario is the only game I find graphically pleasing. Which forces me to say I discovered I am a graphics whore. :(

Most of the games I tried are definitely kiddie games.
Brain Age is a different beast. It reminds me of those psychology tests you take during job interviews. But that's OK since I like that kind of stuff.
Advance Wars Duel Strike has the most inane dialogues I have ever read. Don't tell me you can be older than 13 and think otherwise. The game is interesting otherwise.
Super Mario is obviously very fun. It's a great opportunity to re-live past fun moments on the go.
Deadly Silence is a lame port. I must say this even though I am a big fan of the series.
Metroid Prime is good. I don't want to rant about the graphics again, but I must. Compared to the GC version, Hunters looks worse than an average PS 1 game. Also, handling the camera with the stylus doesn't seem natural to me.

As always with Nintendo's platforms, first-party titles are good, very good or excellent, while third-party titles range from average to terrible.
This is also true on the DS.

Conclusion: I think I will have some fun with this new toy. Yet, I am sure I don't belong to the targeted audience, which must be much younger than I am. In fact, it is clear that Nintendo once again catered to their traditional public: Kids, teens and adults suffering from nostalgia.

Um, Reguy, why exactly would a Nintendo fanboy even -have- to defend against the idea that they ripped off Apple? Does the DS Lite look sleek and awesome? Yes. Does it look similar to Apple products? Yes. Would I prefer they make it ugly and a different color so it -isn't- like something made by Apple? Hell no. The design concepts Apple follows are generally considered what is appealing and modern right now, and Nintendo would be stupid not to follow suit. So they "ripped Apple off." Big whoop. This fact does not diminish the quality of the product or the significance of the improvement over the Phat DS.

Don't forget, the 360 also has a vaguely familiar color and design concept as well. Hrm, wonder where that came from?

reguy,
I believe Nintendo admitted that they are following a similar strategy as Apple. I'm ok with Sony/MS/Nintendo following another non-videogame company's strategy, but when either of these companys copy each other, then that's a different story.

I have to agree with David D on this one... who cares that the DS ripped off Apple? If you really want to argue that, then you can say that the PSP also ripped off Apple, just used black as opposed to that popular white color seen everywhere today.

As for the DS Lite sales, if it's selling just as well as the original DS, what does that say for the original DS's design? I'm just glad that companies, in general, are listening to complaints about their systems and fixing what is wrong (for the record, I'm one of the people that didn't buy the original DS because it was ugly, and bought the DS Lite on launch day). I'm thinking the original xbox and their controller screw-up as the best example.

I knew this would happen. Nintendo copies apple and you guys(David D, Alex) are quick to say 'who cares', but when sony 'stole' from nintendo who in turn stole from microsoft it was the biggest crime ever.

Maybe you and all your nin fanboys should look up the word hypocrisy sometime

I can only speak from my local suburbia perspective, outside of houston. But my store (target) is a pretty good summary of the general consensus. We had 40+ on sunday (launch day), and sold about 5. Today (weds) we have about 20 left. Granted we don't have the deal with the free game like circuit city or fry's, but i doubt that is a deciding factor for most, more like a perk. They are not flying off the shelves, but at the same time, they are selling. Its more than i can say about the psp.
On a side note, this is the first time since the launch that we have not sold out of 360's over the weekend. No matter what we had (premium or core) in stock, they were always gone by sunday nite.

PS- For all those that complain about $60 360 games. How come nobody complains about the $35 price of New Super Mario Bros? I mean, it is a remake of a game that is more than 2 decades old.
Plus, they took out Duck Hunt.

Dear darth,
Everybody knows you hate nintendo.

I agree with you, reguy. IT IS A SHAME. I hate everybody that has a DS lite... freakin' hypocrites!!!
I'm much happier with my Game Gear, which is black and looks nothing like an iPod!

Nintendo never releases black to the United States. Never.

We might get "charcoal" or something, but true black is ALWAYS kept out of American markets for some reason.

Get a Navy one-- it's close. Or get the white and just play some cool games to distract from the color of the plastic casing.

Nintendo of America is Raceist. All white, like white is superior. But the keep the black out of america.. They clearly have something against Black.

Yes reguy, I see the headlines now: iPod goes head to head with the DS Lite in the music-player market.
Apple patents the use of Metallic White – Toyota shares drop 83%
Sony releases screen shots of its new and unique FPS named “Hemroid Crime: Combustion”. The game will uses a revolutionary new controller that allows the users' actions to be translated on screen.

Is it just me, or didn't Nintendo make a white handheld at one time. Oh they copied apple because it is glossy, hmmm....

First of all, When was Apple in the handheld gaming market!!! Oh the pac-man demo on my nano, I didn't know that made it a full fledge gaming machine.
Second of all, when did Apple invent shiny and sleek?

When people say Sony copied Nintendo, it is because Nintendo brings an outside innovation into the realm of gaming, Sony usually bashes them and calls it gimmicky, and then they market it at new and innovative and something their creative team came up with (look at their dual shock law suit!).

No one is calling the sleek shiny design of the DS Lite innovative, or new to the market! This is in the same sense that no one is saying that Sony ripped off the George Foreman grill with their PS3 design, and stole ideas from god and his work on the human anatomy for PSP's analog nipple!

sales down by 10% for transition into next gen gaming. lol i thought there was a nex gen console out in the market - xbox 360? prrrfft, remind me what the xbox 360 could do that is so great that u couldnt do last gen?

the real nex gen systems are ps3 and wii, the best 2 systems no doubt what so ever.

"but when sony 'stole' from nintendo who in turn stole from microsoft it was the biggest crime ever."

I gotta ask, what theft are you even talking about? What did Nintendo steal from Msoft that Sony then stole?

The main uproar you're probably talking about was involving the controller Sony "stole". But this was not a case of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery like such Apple-esque designs. Sony went from attacking Nintendo and calling the Wii controller gimmicky to implementing an inferior version into a controller not designed for the technology, all at the last second, and THEN claimed it to be their innovation. That even pissed off a good portion of Sony fanboys, not just Nintendo faithful.

If Sony releases a slimmed-down Apple-esque PSP (assuming they haven't already) no one would really freak out. But if Sony released a PSP2 with touch screen controls or a second screen, well...then you'll hear Thief comments once again.

I just picked up a DS Lite last night. I own a PSP and used to own the original DS but sold it.
The DS Lite is very nice. For me, it has resolved all of the issues I hated about the original DS. The screen is wonderful, the stylus is no longer a toothpick, the build seems 1000% better and just feels solid, not clunky like the old DS.
I picked up New Super Mario Bros. and The Brain Academy and only got a chance to play The Brain Academy last night. (late night GRAW). The Brain Academy is LOADS of fun. I personally love the #, spacial, memorization, quick thinking games like this. They are basically like those tests in the MENSA books. (I had to do tons of them when I was a gifted school nerd back in the day). Anyways, very happy with the DS Lite right now. I think it will survive the 14 day return period.

"how come when nintendo copies ipod no one says anything but dont let another company 'borrow' from nintendo cuz thats when all hell breaks loose
whooooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaa

hey nintendo fanboys, i want to see you defend against my claim that nintendo ripped off apple!!!"

They copied aesthetics, not features. Similar aesthetics are not something to be bitched about, like you are doing right now. Copying features, like Sony does, however, is underhanded and warrants quite a bit of bitching.

reguy, the DS lite looks nothing like an ipod.

The fact that they made it pretty, small, and white is not copying apple's design. It's only copying the concept (that everyone is doing right now) of trying to make the tech toys simple and pretty.

Sony's lame attempt at imitating Nintendo's Wii controller was utterly pathetic. It was put in at the last second (within 10 days of the game conference) without even telling the majority of their game developers. It stinks of desperation and an attempt to confuse consumers, since the tile system doesn't even work right, and it was put in so last minute, that they had to quash the force feedback feature.

Everybody developing games for the system using force feedback (e.g. MGS games) is going to have to either get a separate controller, or disable that feature now. Sony didn't tell people because they threw it in at the last second.

Btw, I have had my DS imported from Japan and it's wonderful. The improved screen is really the thing I care most about. The old DS was fine for playing games most of the time, but TERRIBLE for showing people games while I played. The screen was dim with poor viewing angle except from directly in front.

BRAIN AGE rocks.

"Nintendo never releases black to the United States. Never.

We might get "charcoal" or something, but true black is ALWAYS kept out of American markets for some reason."

If you want true black, import it. The DS is completely region free. Yeah, it costs more, but if you want something that bad...

adam, New Super Mario isn't a "remake" of the original without Duck Hunt, it's a completely new game, which warrants a $35 price tag. Now, all the real repackaged games they've been releasing like Mario 2, 3, World, Yoshi's Island, etc., are ridiculous and aren't worth $35. But New Super Mario is entirely new content that is merely inspired by the style of earlier games -- I refuse to buy the games that are really just copies of old ones (might consider getting cheap used copies), but I've been very happy about buying New Super Mario.