The rise of the handheld console

[Natoma]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6387551.stm

It's a pretty good article on the state of the PSP and DS, and how the handheld market has expanded in the past 2 years thanks to both.

 

[Blade]

One sure sign of handheld prominence today would be SE's announcement that DQ9 is DS-exclusive.

Traditionally a home-console series, now continuing exclusively on a handheld.

 

[hey69]

its just the next DQ on DS actually..
develop for ps3 ? no chance, almost no install base
develop for ps2? will get too old when game comes out
The DS version is a nice cash in for SQenix

 

[Nesh]

One sure sign of handheld prominence today would be SE's announcement that DQ9 is DS-exclusive.

Traditionally a home-console series, now continuing exclusively on a handheld.

its just the next DQ on DS actually..
develop for ps3 ? no chance, almost no install base
develop for ps2? will get too old when game comes out
The DS version is a nice cash in for SQenix

wasnt there an interview recently that DQ wont stay exclusive on handhelds?

 

[hey69]

actually, that was what i wanted to say.

 

[Blade]

Perhaps I used the wrong wording. Clearly I know that the franchise is not a permanent fixture on the DS.

DQ9 is.

 

[Natoma]

Here's another article: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12932

It compares handheld market sales to consoles and mobile phones.

 

[22psi]

This thread motivated me to buy a DS Lite today.

 

[LunchBox]

i play my ds lite more than my psp.

nintendogs keep me entertained more than anything, specially when i'm in the library at school to "study"

 

[V3]

its just the next DQ on DS actually..
develop for ps3 ? no chance, almost no install base
develop for ps2? will get too old when game comes out
The DS version is a nice cash in for SQenix

DS is a win for almost everyone, except probably me who gets cramp from playing on the darn thing.

Don't forget PS2 games budget for DQ and FF are very high. See how SE split FF13 into multiple games to absorbs the cost of development of PS3. I don't think they could finance the development of both DQ and FF on PS3.

Beside Households have multiple DS. With DS the children, parents and grandparents are going to need a copy each, if they want to play together. It'll probably be the biggest selling DQ ever.

 

[max-pain]

Media Create Sales 2/19 - 2/25

http://www.m-create.com/jpn/s_ranking.html

01. (PSP, Capcom) Monster Hunter Portable 2nd - 705,281 / NEW
02. (PS2, Alchemist) Higurashi no Naku Koro ni - 80,002 / NEW
03. (WII, Nintendo) Fire Emblem: Goddess of the Dawn - 75,359 / NEW
04. (NDS, EA) SimCity DS - 50,826 / NEW
05. (NDS, Level 5) Prof. Layton and the Mysterious Village - 49,979 / 186,716
06. (WII, Nintendo) Wii Sports - 47,053 / 1,090,736
07. (WII, Takara-Tomy) Naruto: Shippuuden Gekitou Ninja Taisen! EX - 45,792 / NEW
08. (NDS, Square-Enix) Dragon Quest Monsters Joker - 40,507 / 1,174,576
09. (WII, Nintendo) Wii Play - 35,811 / 944,586
10. (NDS, Nintendo) Picross DS - 26,693 / 183,357
11. (PS2, Banpresto) Lupin the 3rd: Death for Lupin from Love of Money
12. (NDS, Nintendo) More Brain Age
13. (NDS, Nintendo) New Super Mario Bros.
14. (NDS, Nintendo) Hotel Dusk: Room 215
15. (NDS, Nintendo) Animal Crossing Wild World
16. (NDS, Bandai-Namco) Keroro Gunsou Enshuu da yo! Zen-in Shuugou Part 2
17. (NDS, Nintendo) Wario: Master of Disguise
18. (NDS, Marvelous Interactive) Harvest Moon: The Island I Grew Up On
19. (NDS, Nintendo) Common Knowledge Training
20. (NDS, Nintendo) Mario Kart DS
21. (360, Microsoft) Crackdown
22. (NDS, Konami) Death Note
23. (NDS, Nintendo) Brain Age
24. (PS2, Nippon Ichi Software) Soul Cradle: Sekai wo Kurau Mono
25. (PSP, Bandai-Namco) Tales of Destiny 2
26. (NDS, Pokemon) Pokémon Diamond
27. (NDS, Nintendo) English Training
28. (NDS, IE Institute) Kanji Brain Test 2M
29. (NDS, Sega) Bleach DS 2nd: Kokui Hirameku Requiem
30. (PS2, Capcom) Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
31. (DS, Pokemon) Pokemon Pearl
32. (PSP, SNK Playmore) Metal Slug Complete ~7.6k
33. (Wii, Nintendo) Odoru Made in Wario
34. (DS, Bandai Namco) Heisei Board of Education DS
35. (DS, Spike) IQ Supplement DS
36. (Wii, Nintendo) The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
37. (PSP, Capcom) Monster Hunter Portable ~932k LTD
38. (PS2, Konami) Prince of Tennis CARD HUNTER
39. (DS, Nintendo) 1000 DS Recipe
40. (DS, Rocket Company) Kanken DS
41. (DS, Sega) Love and Berry DS Collection
42. (DS, Nintendo) Kirby Squeek Squad
43. (PS2, SNK Playmore) Garou Densetsu Battle Archive 2 ~7k
44. (DS, Nintendo) Tetris DS
45. (PS2, Marvelous) Aaa! Megami samaa!
46. (DS, Sega) Sangokushi Taisen DS
47. (DS, Capco) Megaman Star Force Pegasus
48. (DS, Sega) Puyo Puyo
49. (PS3, SCE) Untold Legends Dark Kingdom ~6.6k
50. (DS, Konami) NOVA Usagi no Game de Ryuugaku

NDS: 31
PS2: 7
Wii: 6
PSP: 4
XBOX360: 1
PS3: 1

DSL 136,128
PSP 100,210
Wii 78,506
PS3 19,315
PS2 15,054
Xbox360 4,183
GBASP 1,035
GBM 907
GC 323
DS 132
GBA 59

 

[Natoma]

I am so curious as to what the attach rates for the DS are. They must be insanely high when you see it dominating the software sales charts like this week after week after week.

 

[max-pain]

Ops, I posted that in the wrong thread

 

[Corwin_B]

I am so curious as to what the attach rates for the DS are. They must be insanely high when you see it dominating the software sales charts like this week after week after week.

Extremely impressive for a handheld, that's for sure. SW sales in Japan jumped by a whole lot last year, and nearly all of it was for the DS. It already has several games selling over 4 millions copies each.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I am so curious as to what the attach rates for the DS are. They must be insanely high when you see it dominating the software sales charts like this week after week after week.

Possibly. However, it's selling hardwrae at a high rate and that accounts for at least some of the top software sales.

From the chart here, 136k DS's sold, 170k top-ten listed DS games sold. Factoring in the top 50, you're looking at 2 games per new DS, 270k games per week, with the attach rate never getting beyond 2. On average, what's fuelling the top game sells is top hardware sales, rather than high game investment from a smaller userbase as is seen with XB360. For larger attachments, I'd expect to see higher than new-hardware sales. That is, for 150k DSes sold in a week, 400-500k titles should be sold as existing DS owners buy new titles alongside the purchases of new owners.

 

[22psi]

I just got NSMB and Advance Wars on the DS. Man, AWESOME games. What have I been missing all this time.

 

[StefanS]

I just got NSMB and Advance Wars on the DS. Man, AWESOME games. What have I been missing all this time.

Advance Wars is one of my favourite DS games. It's absolutely marvellous: Good levels & good unit design.