5.44 million units of Nintendo DS sold in Japan in 13 months |
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Wed, 28 Dec 2005 02:10
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TOKYO: Japanese game maker Nintendo Co. Ltd. announced that domestic sales of its DS portable game machine touched 5.44 million units since its launch in December 2004, marking the fastest ever sales in the video game market.
Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata said selling five million units in less than 13 months means the DS is the first among any game machines ever launched in Japan to reach this level. Its earlier game device, Game Boy Advance, took 14 months to hit the 5 million mark, while Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 took 17 months.
Iwata said the company had four games that have sold more than 1 million units in Japan.
Nintendo has focused on games for women, adults and seniors in addition to providing advanced facilities, graphics and realistic actions, in its attempt to expand the game-playing population. The company said domestic sales of one of its virtual games, Nintendogs, which allows players to interact with virtual pets with the consoles, have reached 1.08 million units against the usual benchmark of one million.
Meanwhile, analysts feel that Nintendo's dominance is affected by Sony Corporation's PlayStation Portable, which can play games, movies and music and also access the internet. The company had cut its global sales forecast for the DS player to 12 million units worldwide by March 2006 compared with 12.4 million units estimated earlier. It has recently cut the price of the DS by $20 in the United States to increase sales.
Sony has shipped 5.06 million units as of June 30, and expects the total to rise to 15.97 million by March.
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