Or 535,379 units to be exact, according to Kotaku. It’s a very healthy start for the new console, though it doesn’t quite eclipse its predecessor - in its first month on sale, the DS Lite shifted over 550,000 handhelds.
This means that the DS in its various guises has now sold 24,239,590 units in its country of origin, with some clear daylight now between the dual-screened portable and its nearest competitor, the (almost-)all-conquering PS2.
There’s still no confirmed date for the DSi’s appearance in Europe and the US, but then the DSL is still doing very well in both territories, whereas Nintendo acted quickly in Japan to halt the rise of the PSP. With Sony’s handheld comfortably behind the DS everywhere else, it could be quite some time before we’re messing about with pictures and music and downloading applications from the DSiWare service.
Eurogamer has a piece up clarifying the situation regarding Wii Speak, which caused certain internet-goers to get all flustered when they thought they wouldn’t be able to get hold of the peripheral second-hand.
(Though why you’d want to buy a second-hand peripheral I don’t know. Games are one thing, but controllers and other accessories I’d never consider getting pre-owned. Maybe you’re different, but it just seems a bit weird to me.)
Anyway, I digress. Nintendo had the following to say about the matter: ”Nintendo can confirm that when consumers purchase the Wii Speak accessory, they are provided with a Wii Download Ticket with a unique number. The ticket, which can be redeemed via the Wii Shop Channel, will enable the user to download the Wii Speak Channel free of charge to a single Wii console. Any consumer who may have misplaced their Wii Download Ticket number for the Wii Speak Channel or require a new number following a Wii exchange may contact their local Nintendo Customer Services department, where they can request a replacement Wii Download Ticket number.”
So that’s that, then. If you’re getting a preowned Wii Speak, then you’ll still be able to download the Channel. Praise be.
Right, then. I finally got round to uploading some videos of my Wii Music compositions. Above is version one of John Lennon’s ‘Woman’ which I recorded a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I did another, very different take -with one instrument remaining the same - just to compare and contrast, and to show how you can change the feel of a song by the way it’s performed. See below.
To some people this is still going to seem like a load of old rubbish, but hopefully one or two of you will be inspired to pick up Wii Music after seeing just what you can do when you put your mind to it. Not for nothing is it in my top five games of the year…
It was both good and bad news for Nintendo when the US NPD sales figures for October were released. (Mostly good, it has to be said.)
While Wii Music only shifted 81,000 copies in its first two weeks on sale, its host console was a roaring success, with Wii enjoying one of its best months to date, selling an incredible 803,000 units throughout the month. By comparison, the Xbox 360 - benefitting from a price-cut and a host of big-name titles (like Fable II, which pleasingly was the number one selling game for the month) shifted 371,000 consoles. This put it in third place behind the trusty DS, which sold close to half a million.
Slotting in neatly between HD biggies Fable II and Fallout 3 in runner-up spot on the software charts was Wii Fit, with 487,000 balance boards finding their way into homes across the US. Mario Kart Wii and Wii Play rounded out the top five, both selling just under 300,000 copies.
Observations? Well, this so-called ‘fad’ that is the Wii shows no sign of abating. Sony in particular must be getting very worried indeed - particularly as the much-vaunted LittleBIGPlanet (admittedly with not long to impress) was in eighth position with 215,000 copies sold, more than the console it appears on, which limped home with just 190,000 sales to its name. Oh dear. Hit the jump for the sales details in full.
Eurogamer has posted a lengthy analysis of the DSi hardware, which is worth a read if you’ve got five or ten minutes free.
“It’s not surprising to see a small, cheap camera - two small, cheap cameras, in fact - attached to the new DS handheld, because Nintendo isn’t trying to compete with digital cameras and mobile phones. Like the two screens, the stylus and the microphone before them, the cameras are there for playing with” explains EG editor Tom Bramwell.
“For that, we get a cute, chunky photo package that allows you to switch between the two cameras, take still snaps and play around with them, framing people in hearts, kaleidoscoping heads, and storing images on a Brain Training-style daily calendar to build up a picturebook. Like PictoChat, it feels like an example of what can be done, rather than the beginning and end of the process.”
There’s some stuff there about the music functionality, while Brammo seems impressed with the new matt finish and the extra brightness level for the two screens, which apparently makes games like EBA look even more vibrant. Yet until DSiWare hits, apparently there aren’t too many reasons to splash the cash - unless you’re feeling particularly flush, of course.
Well worth a look anyway, if only for the paragraph where Tom uses the word ‘clicky’ three times.
And they’re pretty good - better than the first week sales for the DS Lite and the PSP-2000. DS Lite sales were hugely down, as you’d expect. Overall, the DSi outsold the PSP by more than three-to-one, though you’d expect that for a debut. Elsewhere, the PS3 had a significant spike for GTA and LittleBIGPlanet, but perhaps not as much as some at Sony might have hoped. Meanwhile, the Wii’s starting to struggle a bit - the release of Animal Crossing should bolster sales for a little while, but it’s not doing amazing numbers.
The full figures can be seen below.
DSi 171,925
PSP 50,358
PS3 39,587 Wii 23,123 DS Lite 16,369
PS2 6,714
Xbox 360 6,119
A few recent reports suggested that Japanese gamers weren’t too bothered about the DSi, but those theories seem to have been proven conclusively wrong, with Game | Life suggesting that the initial shipment of 200,000 consoles has all but sold out, with Nintendo shipping a further 100,000 later this week to try and keep up with demand.
Amazing what a small camera, a few bits of additional software and the promise of ace little downloadable games can do for a console, isn’t it? Even when it’s one seemingly owned by virtually everyone in its country of origin. Looks like the DS success story isn’t about to come to a premature end any time soon. It only remains to be seen how many people are prepared to make the switch - but I think the DSi will be on top for a fair while yet, particularly when word gets out about exactly what it can do.
With the DSi launching in Japan tomorrow, us westerners face a bit of a wait for it to arrive in Europe and the US. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata confirmed today that the DSi would likely launch in the west before summer’s over.
Reuters is reporting that Iwata told an assembled group of market analysts and reporters today that “specific plans will be unveiled by our local subsidiaries, but an autumn or year-end launch would probably be too late.”
So nothing concrete, but it looks like we’ll be waiting seven months at the very most.
Which is obviously still way too long - hell, seven weeks would have been too - but at least it’s not likely to slip any further into 2009.
While the DSi’s camera might not offer the sharpest and most impressive picture quality, it seems there’s a wealth of features that make it much more fun than your average digicam. For starters, you can mess about with your picture in real-time, even before you’ve taken a snap. You’ll be able to draw on your pics, add various embellishments, use a number of effects, like a strange kaleidoscopic look or even gradually colour in sections of a monochromatic version of your snaps. You can even do that weird thing where you let one face morph into another.
The music stuff doesn’t look quite as impressive - you can speed up or slow down playback, and record your own voice and add all kinds of weird effects (sort of like Volvoice in Electroplankton). And then there’s the DSiWare downloadable content - no word on what sort of thing will be available, but I imagine it’ll be a mixture of utilities, short indie-like games, tech demos and non-games.
Nintendo can do this sort of thing in its sleep these days, and its telling that even without much effort it’s made the DSi a whole lot more appealing to this Nintendo fan at least. Please feel free to let me know what you think of the console in the comments thread below. Will you be importing? Will you be waiting for a UK release? Or are you perfectly happy with your Lite and don’t mind missing out on camera-based shenanigans and DSiWare? Do tell.
Every time someone types that, in some alternate universe somewhere, David Caruso removes his shades and utters a one-liner before walking off camera.
Anyway, all joking aside, there remains some confusion over DSi. Is it region-locked? Is the camera 3 megapixel or 0.3 megapixel (clue: the latter, actually)? What exactly does it do?
Well, helpfully, Nintendo has translated its own conference, just here. So if you want to know exactly what was said about DSi - and, indeed, the games shown at its Japanese conference - then click that link and learn. It’s been educational for me, and I hope it’s enlightening for some of you folks, too.
 
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