14 DAY TRIAL // With the videogaming industry posting rather lackluster results over the last few months and with Nintendo itself showing falling revenue and profits, a lot of people have been questioning whether the DSi, the new handheld released by the company, has been a success when it comes to sales. The Japanese firm has decided to step in and settle this claim once and for all.
Denise Kaigler, who is the vice president of corporate affairs at Nintendo of America, has told IGN that “In just three months, Nintendo DSi has sold more than 1.7 million in the United States alone, according to the NPD Group. I wouldn't call that slow at all. After three months, the original Nintendo DS had sold nearly 1.38 million and Nintendo DS Lite had sold more than 1.07 million. Even the Wii console had sold ‘only’ about 1.52 million after three months. So Nintendo DSi is beating them all.”
She has also cited the array of games ready to come out, taking advantage of the new features of the handheld like Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky and The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Nintendo expects all those titles to make a significant impact on the number of DSi console sold both in the United States and in other markets.
The handheld is slimmer, has a bigger screen than its predecessors and two cameras, which can be used to take pictures that are used in games or uploaded to social networking sites. The official launch took place only in Japan on November 1, 2008, and it arrived in the United States in April this year. Until now, more than 100 million DS of all models have been sold all over the world and Nintendo is projecting that another 30 million of them will arrive in gamers’ hands in 2009.