AfterDawn: News

Nintendo sold 50 million DS units

According to a Tech.co.uk report, Nintendo has managed to sell over 50 million units of the DS handheld console in less than three years since its initial launch, almost matching the speed of Apple's quest to 100 million iPods. Of the 50 million DS units sold, 40 percent of them have been sold in Japan, meaning approximately one in six people own a DS in the country.

Only a handful of CE tech products ever reach the huge 100 million unit milestone. Apple Inc. announced that it had sold 100 million iPods earlier this year since its first iPods were launched in 2001. Sony took 13.5 years to sell 100 million Walkman players and 10 years to sell 100 million original PlayStations. The still-strong PlayStation 2 (PS2) reached the 100 million milestone in five and a half years.



Nintendo's personal best continues to be the Gameboy, which reached 100 million unit sales in 11 years. The DS seems set to reach the milestone in much less time. The original DS went on sale in 2004 and in 2006, Nintendo offered up the DS Lite to consumers. Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) has sold 25 million worldwide since its 2004 launch.

Source:
PC World

Written by: James Delahunty @ 2 Oct 2007 4:48

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• 8 comments

• nobrainer

  i see the "childs toys" and "fad buy" comments of sony public relations media spinners failing to stop the flow of feet towards the fun aspect of gaming!

  2.10.2007 05:03 #1

• pryme_H

  This is yet another outstanding accomplishment by Nintnedo. NDS is a great handheld, a lot better than PSP in my humble opinion.

  2.10.2007 08:15 #2

• DXR88

  mhm, im a gamer this comes to no surprise to me. Nintendo will continue its greatness. they have one thing that Microsoft and Sony
  Don't. They never turn down ideas they are innovative and creative,
  they welcome any thirdparty developers with great ideas.
  
  I have a psp i use it for homebrew and older games and it media player function. i also have a Wii a N64 A nes A ps2 A xbox 360 A psx
  an xbox an atari 7600 a Neo geo pocket a wonder swuan and DS and A dreamcast a saturn and a genises. im a gamer not a fanboy.

  2.10.2007 18:22 #3

• chaos_zzz

  That is great news for nintento i hope they invest that money on making something poerfull , cuz for me ds is like a remake for a gba, if you compare psp vs ds withouth games psp is way better. the thing with psp is that iso backup has become so common that people are not buying games anymore wich is bad cuz making a psp game is way more expensive than making a ds i could make a ds game with a friend in a day really it's not hard at all, but to make a psp one it' another deal. Psp piracy ruined the psp itself cuz game industry does not invest much on projects. for example the god of war has awesome graphics but prince of persia dodes not and it's from ubisoft a big company, psp priacy has lead to bad games lost of interest from game makers and also to a 66mhz or 60mhz (dun remmber but it's less than 70) processor console selling more than a 333mhz console wich i own and think that is great :)

  2.10.2007 18:28 #4

• woodman2

  the gameboy line has more piracy issues than the psp could shake a stick at,we had full GBA emulators before the system was released.
  
  nds flash cards are cheaper than 4gb sticks and the DS games are alot smaller than psp games.
  
  so blaming piracy for the psp's lack of quality games is stupid.
  
  the DS is just a better system with better games that people will support with money.

  4.10.2007 17:02 #5

• wetsparks

  They can add a +1 to that number here soon. Been wanting to buy one of these but I keep procrastinating.

  4.10.2007 19:57 #6

• borhan9

  Well done however is not 50 million quite ssmall compared to what the numbers could be.

  7.10.2007 22:16 #7

• wetsparks

  For any gaming machine, 50 million is huge. Especially when it has only been out for 3 years.

  9.10.2007 14:43 #8