BudokaiMR2 said:There is one small point that you are missing. Installed User base. When Kirby came out, the user base was a lot small than it is now. What about Wario ware? Jump Superstars sold well and sold a lot of DS's. And about the new consumers not buying games. I don't see a solid point there. No way of backing this up. Are they more likely to buy "real games" now that they own a DS? I say yes, maybe not all of them. Let's wait and see how next years games do, in the light of this increased user base.
But older games aren't selling because of that. Kirby sold a bunch when the user-base was a lot smaller, and other games haven't reaped the benefits of a higher installed base either. The DS is doing incredible numbers, no doubt; but what about the rest of the games GAMERS should be expect to reap the benefits of such an install base? The keyword here is GAMERS. Sure, Brain Training and DS is a ridiculous combo. Same with Animal Crossing. They're doing incredible numbers. But what about the other great games in the DS library? They're lying stagnant! Sequels to GBA games, like Slime Morimori and Gyakuten Saiban (not really a sequel, ok) are doing decent numbers, but not nearly what their predecessors did. It's one thing to have a high install-base, but what if they aren't buying non-brain training games? No other DS games, save for Mario Kart and Animal Crossing, have really benefitted from the DS's penetration. And Mario Kart and Animal Crossing were huge sellers on the floundering N64!
So far, VERY FEW DS games have benefitted from the enormous install base, and that should be the big issue. The DS sells incredibly well, and Mario Kart (the sequel to one of the N64's two million sellers) and Animal Crossing sell a boatload. Also, a Mario-themed RPG also sells over 100k. Meanwhile, the PSP, coming off a month of excellent software, sells 110k, which is well over the PS2 even!, yet, no games crack the top ten. What does this say, as a whole, of the Japanese market?
Are they buying the DS for its software, or because of Brain Training? Are they buying a PSP for software, or its multimedia capibilities? Are people buying a PS2 to play existing releases, or are they buying it for Kingdom Hearts 2/Front Mission 5? While the latter is probably true, it's a serious question. Are you interested in how well Nintendo does because you want to see more great games? Or is it because you're a stock-holder. Because, unless you really want to see more Brain Training games, this news can only be awesome unless you're a blind fanboy, or you're collecting dividends. As gamers, we might see the latter end of 2006 inunduated with 15 Brain Training games and a random bone thrown at gamer-types.