First US Nintendogs Numbers In!!! DS Sales Explode!

[Tim the Wiz]

http://press.nintendo.com/articles.jsp?id=8012

REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 1, 2005 – With sales of a quarter of a million units in its first week of availability, Nintendogs™ is not only America's hottest-selling video game, but the best-selling new game franchise ever for a portable system.

Retailers already are reporting that Nintendogs, made exclusively for the hand-held Nintendo DS™, has sold out in numerous locations across the country, and Nintendo will deliver more shipments as soon as possible. The three versions of Nintendogs and the DS unit itself consistently rank at the top of Amazon.com's best-selling list of all video game products.

"Nearly 15 percent of all DS owners bought Nintendogs in just a week, a virtually unprecedented adoption rate for any title on an established system," said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "And it's also helping sell new DS hardware. Coupled with a price drop to $129.99, retailers are reporting DS sales up between one and a half and three times previous levels, and last week DS comfortably outsold our portable competitors."

Nintendogs lets owners train and care for lifelike puppies using the DS system's touch screen and microphone. It became a cultural phenomenon in Japan and launched in the United States on Aug. 22.

People who like traditional hard-core video games have plenty to enjoy as well. Retailers also report that the new Advance Wars®: Dual Strike military strategy game for Nintendo DS has become one of Nintendo's top sellers.

Nintendo have a new sales phenomenon underway! This is even huger than it is in Japan...

[Brian-AMN]

Is this at all surprising? Nintendogs is going to be HUGE!

[PsyKyX]

Wow. Quarter of a million in a week?! This is going to be one sick holiday season for Nintendo.

[McBizzel]

Good for them, I'm glad about that.

I'm surprised at the number of DS owners though. I really had no idea how many people had one.

Let me think, if a quarter of a million is 15%.. 250000/.15.. calculator.. about 1,666,667 DS units. Is that world wide or just North America? --~

[Tim the Wiz]

Worldwide, it's like 5 million+, so it's just North America, if your math is good. :P

[McBizzel]

Wow, I wish I had some sort of comparison for that, I'm not sure if that number is impressive or not. And yeah, my math is fine there, it's Algebra:
x*.15=250000

Solve for x.

Does anybody have any other system numbers for a comparison, PSP or even home consoles? --~

[Tailzo]

In norway the import version sells good too. I talked to someone I know, he said he sold so much of the Nintendogs now that he did not have any DS system left.

[Tim the Wiz]

The Nintendo DS is at 2,958,581 in Japan, 1.5 million+ in the US and 1 million+ in Europe, while the PSP is around 1.6 million+ in Japan and around a million in the US, roughly. At this point, the DS has had HUGE momentum in Japan, while it looks like Nintendogs has given Nintendo the edge once more in US, although on the software side of things, the PSP is selling alot of 3rd-party stuff.

So in the big picture: the DS has outperformed the PSP in Japan, while the two handhelds are going toe-to-toe in the US, and of course Europe + Australia is anybody's guess.

[Tailzo]

Psp just launched in Europe, so we'll see in a year or so how it evolves. I hope both portables manage to sell alot. Seems like the DS is not too new and scary to people, even outside of Japan. That's good.

[I'mSuperAwesome!]

good job nintendo. maybe theyre going to start bringing all those weird games over to the US now? doubt odama will do this good though :P

edit: what about the demographics? so they did reach the female gamer demographic?

.. calculator.. about 1,666,667 DS units... --~


whoa! maybe they had satan help them :D

[John35]

I can't say that I'm part of the craze but I'm very happy to see Nintendo doing so well. Keep em' comin guys.

[Tailzo]

From what I've heard from this store in norway (www.tbcgames.no), they sell equally much to boys as girls.

[John35]

: Nintendo DS Facts & Figures (Gamecube Europe)
Posted by Tphi - Sep 1st 2005 17:57
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nintendo UK decided to release some boastful figures about the DS today, by mysterious coincidence also the day the PSP arrives in Europe...

Did you know, for instance:


An impressive 1.3 million Nintendo DS consoles have been sold across Europe to date, with an incredible 6.5 million sold worldwide – accounting for a whopping 13 million game-playing thumbs across the globe!
Nintendogs – available only on the DS - is being hailed as the coolest game release this year and in Japan a massive 40% of purchasers of the title are females, clear testament that Nintendo is expanding the market and people's very perception of what a video game is.
In the UK, the Nintendo DS broke records for the biggest ever opening in a launch weekend, selling 87,000 units in two days – that's an average of one Nintendo DS sold every two seconds!
Nintendo is pushing the frontiers of video game play with genre-defining DS titles, some which can't even really be defined as games but new interactive experiences, such as Electroplankton, where music is fused with art and Brain Training for Adults.
The launch of the Nintendo DS was the fastest new console launch ever, taking just 14 weeks from its US launch to be released worldwide (although it did feel longer to the European crowd).
Nintendo DS already has over 40 DS titles available and is backwards compatible with over 550 GBA games - that's the equivalent of over 5,000 hours of back-to-back gaming!
Three million Nintendo DS consoles will be in the hands of European consumers by the end of this year.
The Nintendo DS is enhanced when DS Colours launch across Europe on 7th October – available in Pink and Blue.
Nintendo DS provides videogames access regardless of age or gender and offers new ways to play. On no other portable console can your voice control the action, control the character by touch screen or play with WiFi capabilities.
This Christmas, Nintendo DS will be supported by a strong line up of games including nintendogs, Mario Kart DS, Advance Wars and Kirby Power Paint Brush.

[Jeff K-DSA]

Well then thank you tim for the math. Seems the PSP fanboy argument that the DS is having its ass handed to it in the USA is a steaming pile considering somewhere around 1.6-2mil units have been put into physical hands (unlike Sony who only reports units sold to retailers, not sellthrough -- EVER.)

I have to say I had the game and ended up hating it enough to get rid of it. While the concepts were genius and fun the dog ai and the voice recognition is flawed enough to create a large pool of aggravation. My fiance for now is keeping hers but isn't ver happy with it either, said she'll swap one 'life sim' for another when Animal Crossing pops up and I can't blame her. My brother actually was able to get one dog to be semi-decent, but his other was a larger forgetful and mindless tard than both of ours here (and I had 4 dogs I attempted across 3 breeds.) You can only take so much saying shake and getting roll over, or liedown is sit (and I used very clear and different words well spoken for each too as she did as well.)

My brother claims his secret for the GOOD DOG was to have no life basically. Get up in the morning and feed/water/walk your dog, play a lil too. During the daytime at some rate do it again, but also perhaps do a competition but also rehearse EACH TRICK at least 2-3x in a row successfully so it don't forget them. And finally in the evening do the same as the morning. Wash rinse and repeat and you should get a moreso behaving animal. To me that made it more annoying than a Tamagotchi you can't turn off, and hell even that is coming to DS very late this year in Japan (US in 06 I'd bet as they're on sale here again in toy isles now!)

Happier with my Advance Wars DS swap out at this rate. But all in all I can totally see why both of these are rocking the crap out of the DS sales numbers. While the dog game is selling on sheer uniqueness and overkill hype value, the other is a newely established big franchise that can move on it's own merits, and even enough so (like Nintendogs) to sell hardware units just to play it. Congrats to both, but obviously in my book...moreso to one more than the other.

Perhaps a Nintendogs2 in the future with fixed up AI and better voice recognition and I'd give it another go.

[SpaceOddity]

i dont have any of the problems you have jeff, and i rarely play nintendogs.

Well im glad to see these sales numbers, i was at first wary of how well nintendogs would sell to the american audience, but obviously its a whopping success.

kudos nintendo

[blue rogue]

Wow, I'm surprised. I didn't think Nintendogs would do this well in the US.

[RivenWinner]

passing through the undergrad library yesterday, I noticed this really, really hot chick playing Nintendogs on her DS. It just amazed me, cause I'm not really used to seeing chicks play handheld games like she was.


So yeah, I guess Nintendo is expanding the market lol

[enigma7]

^That's exactly what gives me hope about Nintendo's "All Access Gaming" approach. People that never played games because they were always about space and sports and fighting will be able to pick up a game like Nintendogs and boom...you have a whole new market to tap. I can't even begin to describe how brilliant it is for Nintendo to do something different and create this kind of game. My prediction is that they will release a black or pink DS bundled with Nintendogs in the US by Thanksgiving. It would sell like hotcakes for christmas.

[chipotleattack]

Riven...you're lucky. If I saw a hot chick playing Nintendogs I would've turned mine on and went up tell her that my dog would like to bear her dog's puppies. Or something like that.

Still, this is pretty amazing. I didn't expect Nintendogs to be this big in the US. It's good to know Nintendo is broadening horizons and that girls are starting to play games...hopefully Nintendogs is just the start.

[Kinslayer]

passing through the undergrad library yesterday, I noticed this really, really hot chick playing Nintendogs on her DS. It just amazed me, cause I'm not really used to seeing chicks play handheld games like she was.


So yeah, I guess Nintendo is expanding the market lol

Dude, talk to her. Take your DS with you and go there when she's there and ask her what game she's playing.

If a popular preppy girl was interested in touching my DS because of SM64, Nintendogs will do wonders.

[chipotleattack]

Say to her "Hi, do you want to hold my stylus and rub my DS?"

Actually don't try that if you don't want to get slapped...but maybe she'll have a good sense of humor. You should go for her...good luck.

[blue rogue]

Chicks dig the DS!

[chipotleattack]

I'm telling you chicks love the stylus!

[Tailzo]

My fiance loves playing Meteos against me, and she wins 8/10 times. I'm really no match for her. She also wants Animal Crossing. She's been asking me several times when it will be released in Europe.

[cubeenigma]

I still think that these sales are crazy for this game in the american audience. Now where is nightmare to come here and complain about something?

[Mana_Aya]

6.5 million is good. Expect huge holiday sales. Yaya nintendogs. I hope advance wars sold atleast 50k.

[Sascha-AMN]

Good for Nintendo, bad for me. I want fewer of these zany touchy-feeling games, and more of the good stuff like Advanced Wars, Castlevania, Lunar, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Mario Kart DS, Viewtiful Joe: Double Trouble, Sonic Rush, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time, etc - games that implement the second/touch screen in an intuitive manner, but not such that the game REVOLVES around touching crap. I dont want the sales of mundane things like Nintendogs, Lost in Blue, or Touch-this-or-that, to make developers put more energy into making those types of games instead of the ones that are actually fun to play.

In any case, hopefully this will clue Sony into the fact that GAMES sell portable consoles, not ****ing movies. I swear, if I didnt have Medievil to look forward to and Death Jr wasnt so fun to play, Id be buying a DS ahead of time (projected date - sometime in October). At this point though, Im still storing funds for the Ultimate Xbox 360 package from EB.

[Mech]

Ditto, Sascha.

It's really too bad Nintendogs had to come out along with Advance Wars- it's going to be overlooked, which is a damn shame- It's one of the best portable games I've ever played.

[SpaceOddity]

dude i brought my ds to a wedding i went to and opened up nintendogs adn it picked up chicks like crazy...they love puppies and the ds.

and sascha i still think your an ass lol Lost in Blue looks incredible and really doesnt fit your definition of a "touchy feely game", but w/e you always are here to take the total opposite side from me, which makes it interesting.

[Jeff K-DSA]

I think it's freakin hilarious the puppy sim is doing so blasted well. Nintendo said they wanted to do a few things in gaming. They primarily wanted to design a control device so easy it didn't scare off non-gamers and the passive types. They wanted to make 'non-games' that would attract different gamers and even the hardcore. They also wanted to deliver these concepts at a fair and low pricepoint. And in just 9 months it has happened.

Nintendo has shown people that you can enjoy a game even if it's not so much of a game but an experience. Nintendo has proven their time honored tradition of uniqueness, awesome gameplay, and giving an offering that a kid or some adult badass could both sit down and enjoy without ridicule.

And Sascha I agree mostly with you, but you're being way overly harsh on Lost in Blue. That is just a 3D version of the old big seller Survival Kids from the GBC era and it's actually a very deep game, not just some chincy non-game poke and play title. I guess my insights from the newest NP mag laying out some incredible meat on the game really sparked my interest with it. I do agree on the others you nitpick on as they just don't have staying power in some cases (say polarium) but others like the puppy game do. I have to admit though Advance Wars is pretty damn cool using nothing but the stylus to play, very intuitive design and it's so cozy it's like doing a mouse on the PC in a sim.

And yah...enigma is right too across he board, but mostly in particular with the fact if NOA got a brain and put the black (boys) or pink (girls) DS out and had it in a shrink wrap or just TOLD TO DO SO giving Nintendogs (customers choice in version) with it for free, or even on a markdown ($150 vs $130 for ds w/no game) they'd make a serial killing in christmas.

[Lucas]

Nintendogs is the new Pokemon, that's all there is to it.

[Z.E.I.D.A.N]

Except Nintendo won't be milking this one to death..... oh, wait a minute...

[RivenWinner]

Riven...you're lucky. If I saw a hot chick playing Nintendogs I would've turned mine on and went up tell her that my dog would like to bear her dog's puppies. Or something like that.

Say to her "Hi, do you want to hold my stylus and rub my DS?"

Actually don't try that if you don't want to get slapped...but maybe she'll have a good sense of humor. You should go for her...good luck.


[/QUOTE]
Dude, talk to her. Take your DS with you and go there when she's there and ask her what game she's playing.

If a popular preppy girl was interested in touching my DS because of SM64, Nintendogs will do wonders.[QUOTE]



LOL



yes, perhaps I should lol

[cubeenigma]

There are rumors on a christmas edition already >_<

[chipotleattack]

Let's get a Nintendogs TV show now and a trading card game. And in the next commercial I expect to hear "gotta catch 'em all! Nin-ten-dogs!" (It kind of sounds like "gotta catch 'em all Po-ke-mon")

[RivenWinner]

And in the next commercial I expect to hear "gotta catch 'em all! Nin-ten-dogs!" (It kind of sounds like "gotta catch 'em all Po-ke-mon")

oh please.......lol

[McBizzel]

My girlfriend loves DS too. First she would always play Meteos, then she found out that my little brother also had Wario Ware and now that's all she ever plays.

Personally, I DON'T want Nintendogs.. or Lost in Blue for that matter, survival sim.. no thanks. To each their own though.

Absolutely no pun intended, there's just no other word I can think of for this:
I'm glad to see Nintendo doing well, they've been the underdogs of the gaming industry for quite some time. --~

[John35]

^^No pun Nintended, that's pretty funny.

[Dr. Teeth]

Still don't understand the appeal if you own a dog.

But then again, I never understood the appeal of Pokemon even after playing it.

[Keto]

Still don't understand the appeal if you own a dog.

But then again, I never understood the appeal of Pokemon even after playing it.

Things are weird that way arn't they? The Sims.....everyone who ever played The Sims has/had their own human life, yet many enjoy the game still.

[chipotleattack]

And people played Animal Crossing even though they lived in towns. :D - best quote ever by Kouji!!

[Dr. Teeth]

Which I later proved to give him the dumbface on

[Z.E.I.D.A.N]

I personally can't have a real dog (family problem), so to me, Nintendogs is a godsend. Chopper and Buster have become household names now!!

[Keto]

I personally can't have a real dog (family problem), so to me, Nintendogs is a godsend. Chopper and Buster have become household names now!!

I'm sorta the same....I can't get a dog while living at home...I'm in college right now, and one of the biggest things I'm looking forward to when I move out is getting a dog.

I'm really enjoying Nintendogs though, might sound funny, but it isn't hard to feel attached. Nintendo did a good job giving these pups personality and having it be effected by how you raise em. =3 And I got Advanced Wars to fufill my more action needs atm, and Meteos, Band Brothers, and more...I'm having a good ol time with my DS. Nintendogs to me, really feels like my own real pups in a cartridge. Which is a good thing.

[ninjaboyjohn]

I'm sorta the same....I can't get a dog while living at home...I'm in college right now, and one of the biggest things I'm looking forward to when I move out is getting a dog.

Same here!

If you haven't seen it already, check out my review
http://ds.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=2510

[Jeff K-DSA]

Well I've never been stranded on an island having to explore, make tools, stay alive, make fire, hunt for food, and so on... so Lost in Blue will be a blast trying to live and escape. It's not really a sim more than an adventure w/out weird dudes with swords, magic, or other stuff.

[Z.E.I.D.A.N]

I really wanna play Lost in Blue, along with Trace Memory. Isn't 'Memory coming out this month??

[McBizzel]

I really wanna play Lost in Blue, along with Trace Memory. Isn't 'Memory coming out this month??
Is it? I really don't know much about it, but I'm really interested. --~

[Miggy-AMN]

In any case, hopefully this will clue Sony into the fact that GAMES sell portable consoles, not ****ing movies. I swear, if I didnt have Medievil to look forward to and Death Jr wasnt so fun to play, Id be buying a DS ahead of time (projected date - sometime in October). At this point though, Im still storing funds for the Ultimate Xbox 360 package from EB.

I'm pretty sure that if you play Advance Wars, even on a borrowed DS, your projected date would be tomorrow. :) OMG IT'S SO GOOD.

[Mebber]

Ditto, Sascha.

It's really too bad Nintendogs had to come out along with Advance Wars- it's going to be overlooked, which is a damn shame- It's one of the best portable games I've ever played.

Up until now DS games have sucked on the most part but now that alot of great games are coming out I really doubt if Nintedogs or Advance Wars will be over looked.