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DS, Wii Totally Cooling Off In Japan

Kotaku: In 2006, the DS ruled Japan. (Heck, in 2007, too.) The hardware was hard to come by, and things got so back in 2006 that American DSes were re-imported into Japan to satisfy the demand. Things have tailed off considerably. According to Nintendo's Q1 FY3/09 statement, DS hardware sales dwindled, moving 580,000 units in Q1 this year. In last year's Q1, Nintendo moved a staggering 2 million plus DSes. Hardware isn't the only thing that suffered; DS software sales are down as well. Last year's Q1, 979,000 units of DS software were sold, compared to this part quarter's 493,000 units of DS software.

Same's true for the once red hot Wii console. In the previous year's Q1, Nintendo shifted 950,000 units. This past quarter, Nintendo sold 530,000 Wiis. Good news is that Wii software sales are up. Last year Q1, Nintendo moved 2.78 million units of Wii software. What about Q1 2009? A strong 3.9 million units. As the domestic business continues to diminish, Nintendo is clearly finding success with customers in North America and Europe. Japan, it seems, is on the decline.

Comparison after the jump

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kotaku.com

Fishy Fingers - contributor
Published: 524 days 18 hours ago | Article | Wii | Nintendo DS | Gaming | Industry News

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Fernando Rocker - 524 days 18 hours ago

1 -

Please, read the full story...

The title is sarcasm. =p

Nintendo just released the Q109 results:

http://kotaku.com/5030821/f...

http://kotaku.com/5030826/n...

http://kotaku.com/5030819/n...

http://kotaku.com/5030820/n...

Nintendo is selling now more software than the 360.

Just take in example the British sales data for last week: Nintendo, Wii, DS, Wii, DS, Nintendo, DS, Wii, Nintendo. That's all last week was to you, Britain. A chance for Nintendo games to parade up and down the high street, flaunting their money-printing wares while your little sisters run shrieking into the streets to buy yet another copy of Big Beach Sports and Guitar Hero DS. Indeed, so entrenched was Nintendo's dominance in the UK last week that 29 of the top 40-selling titles were for either the Wii or DS, including the entire top 10.

http://kotaku.com/5030793/b...

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mistertwoturbo - 524 days 18 hours ago

1.1 -

The decline is probably due to no new fresh titles coming out. Expect monster hunter Wii to pioneer that thing right back to the top.

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LossTheEarthbreaker - 524 days 10 hours ago

1.2 - Title is very serious, not sarcasm.

People don't want to play anything being released on the system now or anytime soon, thus the hype has turned more to "wait for [this] or [that]" as opposed to "Holy Crap! Mario, Metroid, and Zelda, oh my!"

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MonkeyMaan - 524 days 8 hours ago

1.3 - Fernando

Why can't you be more like this on Joystiq? Every chance you get there, you berate Sony. don't make me link to your posts now, especially the one regarding N4G contributors.

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harry190 - 524 days 18 hours ago

2 - I like the DS,

lots of really nice exclusives on it (Professor Layton,The End of the World....endless list).

But there must be a point where it starts selling less,that's normal.

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Fernando Rocker - 524 days 18 hours ago

2.1 -

The DS is the definition of how a succesful system should be.

Nintendo DS is the system with the most third party support. It has more support from third party than the console systems.

Yeah, it has a lot of casual, but, it also has a lot of hardcore. The DS, together with the PS2, is an example of how a succesful system should be: a lot of hardcore games plus a lot of casual games.

Too bad that this site, N4G, promotes the DS as a casual system only, but by fortune, 70 million of people are enjoying their DS.

DS succes, and DS outselling every other current system every month is because the game selection is huge.

Check this thread. It takes a few seconds to load all the images, but you will love the thread.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

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meepmoopmeep - 524 days 18 hours ago

3 -

nintendo is ruling all fronts right now. console, handheld and software sales.

anyway, i've noticed that wii's are now more available all over the place at retailers.

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mistertwoturbo - 524 days 18 hours ago

3.1 -

Yup, Wii's are now a lot more available. Maybe they weren't lying about not having enough consoles to meet consumer demand?

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Fernando Rocker - 524 days 18 hours ago

3.2 -

They just increased the production from 1.8 million per month to 2.4 million.

Thats a 600,000 of increase.

It was reported even here in N4G.

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meepmoopmeep - 524 days 16 hours ago

3.3 -

oh, no wonder, cool, i'm going to get my cousin to hook me up at futureshop and get about $50 off. ah, connections are sweet :D

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LossTheEarthbreaker - 524 days 10 hours ago

3.4 - It's because no one wants one now.

The Wii is a console for the casual and for parties.

It's really sad how abysmal the lineup is.

I argue that the DS doesn't have a stellar library, either, but it's better than the Wii's.

Doesn't seem like a whole lot of quantity, forget quality.

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Voiceofreason - 524 days 18 hours ago

4 -

Another thing to consider is where exactly they are shipping those 2.4 million a month. Japans sales my be decreasiong simply because they are shipping those units to the states or other areas. I cant wait til later on today when this news is posted as proof that the Wii fad is over. It should be good for a few laughs anyway.

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Fernando Rocker - 524 days 18 hours ago

4.1 -

You have a very good point:

Of course, you have to take it in conjunction with the other story:

http://kotaku.com/5030819/n...

The Wii is "down" (between 40k and 50k every week, compared to 12k of the PS3) in Japan, but up everwhere else, quite substantially in fact, as the link shows.

They are selling a lot more hardware in USA and EU.

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scissor_runner - 524 days 16 hours ago

4.2 -

Did you guys notice how hard the PS3 dropped in japan after MGS4 and FF13 became multi-platform. The 40,000 is respectable. Also software is doing pretty good. I think some thing else may be going on in japan though. This place does not like PC games and two out of the 3 systems out are PC gaming consoles. Some thing is going on over there and if it wasn't for nintendo systems gaming would pretty much die over there! Of course the PSP is ruling but I think that because of hacking, portable porn and hacked games in that order LOL.

Maybe every one is trying to hack the PS3 who knows?

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Skerj - 524 days 18 hours ago

5 -

Man Wii's going to be burning up the charts when Monster Hunter 3 comes out, look what MH has done for the PSP. That's one exclusive Sony definitely should have come off their horse and ponied up the cash for.

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6 SSCOOLCHEA | 524 days 14 hours ago - User only got 1 bubble - Show

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mint royale - 524 days 12 hours ago

6.1 - Even if they were 13 id bet they will still be older than you

haha oh i just got your joke... no one over teh age of 13 can have an interest in nintendo... haha.. you fail

so hard

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sephy 9 2 5 - 524 days 11 hours ago

7 - Why would people in Japan

care if FF13 went multi-platform? Anyway ever since those brain age games and nintendogs was released, Nintendo has been killing the competition on every front. They struck gold again with Wii Sports and haven't looked back since. Its crazy how fast the DS/Wii is selling compared to the PS2. Both of them might surpass it.

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scissor_runner - 524 days 4 hours ago

7.1 -

I don't know if they care or not but after MGS4 and the announcement of FF13 multiplatform thing dropped even harder than before. Maybe it's just a correlation. I mean all the games coming seems like they are made for western gamers any way. That can't be appealing to them.

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ash_divine - 524 days 2 hours ago

7.2 - @scissor runner

you do realize that in Japan Final Fantasy XIII is still exclusive to the PS3 right? (just ask anyone in the world if you don't believe.) so why would sells drop in Japan?

and it's not a sells decline "Einstein". You see MGS4 spiked sales, and what you are seeing is the sales going back to normal.

could you fail any harder?

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scissor_runner - 523 days 16 hours ago

7.3 -

Lots of people in japan learn english and getting an american xbox might actually be cheaper. It could also be the fact that more and more JRPG are coming to the xbox 360? I'm not a 360 fan and japan hates PC gaming. This is not about failing because you don't have a valid reason for the drop off either do you? Maybe the reports of trade in PS3 are true and they simply have to sale those first before saling the new stock, because it would be cheaper.

It's all a guessing game but we should all be playing SC4 right? The whole thing is really strange to me but hey it's the slow summer i guess?

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Allowen - 524 days 11 hours ago

8 - This Nintendo's generation sucks so much that I will not buy from then anymore.

DS indead rocks with games to hardcore and non hardcoreplayers.I still love my PSP more but I am having fun playing again FF4,well the remake on the DS.

About Nintendo Wii it is the worst vg I ever bought(Since Master System & NES).
Imagine that FF4 on the DS have more voice acting then all the 1st party Wii games conbined.It is another shame for the Wii.

I hope that Nintendo go back to the old days when they made great gaming consoles for every one to have fun.

As a hardcore player I seek real quality and not easy to finish games,so I am now only fan of PS3&Xbox360.
If Nintendo keeps the idea that their games should be simple,challengeless and graphically horrible(Comparing to PS3& Xbox360) This will be the last gen I will buy Nintendo's products.

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SmokingMonkey - 524 days 10 hours ago

9 - ever1 has one now so

they can't sell more ds's there.

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LossTheEarthbreaker - 524 days 10 hours ago

9.1 - But what is everyone playing?

I mean I enjoyed Phoenix Wright and the Castlevanias. I played through New Super Mario Bros. once, which was plenty. Phantom Hourglass really disappointed me, along with Metroid Prime: Hunters.

I never got try Elite Beat Agents or Trauma Center. There's some new title called "The World is Not Yours" or something that interests me, but I know nothing about it.

Are those enough to purchase the system, though? If someone can name off some other critically acclaimed titles that I might be interested in, please list them.

edit: forgot FFIII and FFIV. Anyone comment on the quality?

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vashivihang - 524 days 8 hours ago

9.2 - at 9.1

wow really you are so off the track. dude i own pswii as well as ds and ds has a very strong lineup and selection of games. there is a thread on neogaf about all ds games. check it out. its simply amazing. perhaps the best

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SmokingMonkey - 524 days 10 hours ago

10 - yeah

i traded in my ds lite to help pay for my PS3.
ds games are like wii games, a few good ones and a sea of crap
PSP FTW IMO

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mint royale - 524 days 9 hours ago

11 - Well once the new dragon quest comes out

the DS will be unstoppable once again. Dragon quest even dwarfs Final Fantasy in Japan.

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12 AlexGV | 524 days 9 hours ago - deleted by mod -

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KingKirchner - 524 days 8 hours ago

13 -

I have PSP, DS, Wii and PS3.

PSP and DS I like equally. I've found them to be just about on even ground as far as good games, with the DS being a marginal winner if I had to call it, but PSP has music player, which ties it back up with DS.

However, I like the PS3 a lot more than Wii. the DS, like the PS2, has that great mix of hardcore to casual (if not leaning a bit on the casual side), but the Wii...well, last year was great, this year and beyond not looking so good...

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AAACE5 - 524 days 8 hours ago

14 - Honestly...

The DS is a cool system, but I rarely play it! My wife and kids play their DS's alot, mainly animal crossing. But for me... I still can't find too many games I really want to play, or games that feel like they are worth the price! Yes we have mario and zelda, etc. all the first party DS games, but there seems to be nothing more after that... unless i'm missing something?

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KingKirchner - 524 days 8 hours ago

14.1 -

No, you're not really missing anything. The DS is highly over-rated, even though it is very good.

other than 1st party Nintendo stuff, there's Square's RPGs like FFIV, The World Ends with You, etc. and Castlevania. Plus I hear Pheonix Wright is good, but it's not my kind of game.

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Voiceofreason - 524 days 8 hours ago

14.2 -

For me the Ds wins for one simple reason. Portable GTA. No more single analog controls.

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MonkeyMaan - 524 days 8 hours ago

15 - EDIT

DOUBLE POST EDIT. See 1.3

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LeonSKennedy4Life - 524 days ago

16 - well

The Japanese people are buying PS3's now.

After TGS, PS3 sales will shoot through the roof.

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flappo - 524 days ago

17 -

the wii is utter junk

i bought my dad a copy of bass fishing - it was on the dreamcast

the dreamcast actually had better graphics !!!

went back to playing that old white system rather than this supposedly superior white system

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lewis - 523 days 19 hours ago

18 - EVEN SAID.

i got nothing to say.

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