European DS vs PSP sales

Repo

Established Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2004
Messages
431
Reaction score
21
Points
104
Location
Sheffield, UK.
<table x:str="" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 219pt;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="290"><col style="width: 65pt;" width="86"> <col style="width: 62pt;" width="82"> <col style="width: 62pt;" width="82"> <col style="width: 30pt;" width="40"> <tbody><tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt; width: 65pt;" height="17" width="86">
</td> <td class="xl29" style="width: 62pt;" width="82">DS Sales</td> <td class="xl30" style="width: 62pt;" x:str="PSP Sales" width="82"> PSP Sales </td> <td class="xl29" style="width: 30pt;" width="40">Ratio</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">UK</td> <td class="xl27" x:num="1000000"> 1,000,000 </td> <td class="xl27" x:num="795000"> 795,000 </td> <td class="xl24" x:num="0.79500000000000004" align="right">80%</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">France</td> <td class="xl27" x:num="750000"> 750,000 </td> <td class="xl27" x:num="500000"> 500,000 </td> <td class="xl24" x:num="0.66666666666666663" align="right">67%</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">Germany</td> <td class="xl27" x:num="520000"> 520,000 </td> <td class="xl27" x:num="350000"> 350,000 </td> <td class="xl24" x:num="0.67307692307692313" align="right">67%</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">Spain</td> <td class="xl27" x:num="425000"> 425,000 </td> <td class="xl27" x:num="295000"> 295,000 </td> <td class="xl24" x:num="0.69411764705882351" align="right">69%</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">Other</td> <td class="xl27" x:num="1005000"> 1,005,000 </td> <td class="xl27" x:num="500000"> 500,000 </td> <td class="xl24" x:num="0.49751243781094528" align="right">50%</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl25" style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17">Total</td> <td class="xl28" x:num="3700000" x:fmla="=SUM(B2:B6)"> 3,700,000 </td> <td class="xl28" x:num="2440000" x:fmla="=SUM(C2:C6)"> 2,440,000 </td> <td class="xl26" x:num="0.6594594594594595" align="right">66%</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
I found these figures* over at www.gamerankings.com and thought it was interesting to see that the UK has the highest ratio of sales of PSP to DS (8 PSP's sold to every 10 DS's sold). I'm under the impression (perhaps wrongly?) that Nintendo are usually better at regionalisation than Sony, so I wonder if this why the DS has sold better where English isn't the first language - or maybe us Brits are just more susceptible to Sony's marketing than Johnny Foreigner :p

Either way 800k sales of PSP's and 1m sales of DS's is pretty good. I do wonder what the figures would look like if adjusted for imports.


* Presumably they are total combined sales to 31st January 2006 although the article doesn't specify.
 
That's quite surprising, I thought the PSP was outselling the DS over here?
 
They are very different devices, I don't see the point in comparing them. I didn't buy my PSP primarily for games, so you can't compare that sale against a DS sale can you?
 
I didn't buy my PSP primarily for games, so you can't compare that sale against a DS sale can you?
Of course you can. Just because you didn't buy your portable games machine primarily to play games on doesn't mean it can't be compared with another portable games machine......
 
Mandark said:
I think price has a lot to do with it to be honest.

I don't think so. It's more to do with the fact that the DS has far more original games as well as better quality ones. All the PSP really has for the most part is home console ( in particular PS2 ) ports. Overall percentage wise the DS has far more outstanding games.
 
Not a bad performance at all given the cost of Sony's handheld and the fact that Ninty previously owned the handheld market. I'd have thought that the DS would have sold around twice as many as the PSP so these figures must be encouraging for Sony.
 
But when the DS was first announced (and remember this is not meant to be the 'true' successor to the GBA) everyone forecasted the death of Ninty. I think the DS is done pretty well in light of this.
 
When you consider that DS costs &#163;90 and psp &#163;180 you can't argue that the price points don't have anything to do with it.

The christmas Nintendogs bundle, and the blue and pink bundle means that more parents would have probably bought their child a DS for xmas, where as the PSP is out of most parents price range and is a product aimed at 20 somethings to buy for themselves.

Of course the DS is the successor to the GBA, the fact that the DS has a GBA port dictates this. The much fabled GBA2 is nothing more than a myth, and the next nintendo handheld will probably run on gamecube sized discs, du e to the file size of games over 64 bit.
 
All the reports point to the DS being a Ninty project designed to be stop-gap before the real successor of the GBA is released. I certainly see iterations of the DS (beyond the lite version) being available side-by-side with the GBA 2 in years to come.
 
Post them here then mate. I would like a look :thumbsup:
 
Tejstar said:
But when the DS was first announced (and remember this is not meant to be the 'true' successor to the GBA) everyone forecasted the death of Ninty. I think the DS is done pretty well in light of this.

Not really - Ninty handhelds keep the company afloat and they owned the market. I can see people's reasons to cast doom and gloom over their console's but not their handhelds. Gameboy is to handhelds what Playstation is to consoles. For the PSP to outsell a "gameboy" (OK it's called a Nintendo DS but people still class it as a gameboy) would be like the XBox outselling the Playstation 2 IMO. For them to get as close to the DS sales with a product costing twice as much is amazing!

This shows I guess how big the mature gamer market is now as I would assume the majority of PSP owners are at least teenagers or above.

EDIT: given Nintendo's attitude to gaming I can't see a GBA 2 getting released anytime soon. The Micro is a prime example of where they want to be - i.e. a focus on more portable handheld gaming - not more powerful gaming. Take the DS - hardly that much more powerful than the GBA is it. The GBA is 32 bit and not far off the power of the original PS1 - the DS is around the same power as an N64 - same generation. A new gameboy will no doubt come out eventually but I bet the new Micro will sell like hotcakes and there really isn't a need for a new Gameboy for quite some time i'd say.
 
I personally think Ninty's problems are a direct result of their poor third party support and their attitude to Europe.

The big N make some quality games that are (usually) original and innovative, and are gnerally the big selling point for an Nintendo XYZ console, unfortunately some of their games have not been quite as innovative and original of late, given that, you would expect third party companies to balance out the success of their consoles with equal amounts of good quality original products, not the case with Nintendo. Who seem to make it very difficult for smaller games companies to write for their products.

Consequently I think M$ and Sony are beating the big N on sales of under-the-TV-consoles, particularly in Europe. Add in Nintendo's poor attitude toward Europe.... games released months after they have been elsewhere, some games not even released, other features not brought out to European markets. I guess I would agree with Cas that the handhelds are probably keeping Ninty afloat, they are priced at an affordable level, they are aimed pretty much at the kiddy market and the games are pretty good. The PSP, seems to me, to be overpriced, not just the handheld, but the games/movies/bits-n-pieces all seem very expensive, not really within most kiddies (or their parents) budgets.

On a final note, Ninty is rumoured to be launching the revolution sometime this year, I do hope it is a big success, I would hate to see Nintendo go the same way as Sega !:)
 
I personally hope Nintendo sticks around as they make some fantastic consoles and games - the Revo is looking very exciting and i'm currently playing my little Micro more than my 360 :D.

I guess Sony are a tough cookie to battle in whatever area they release a console and with games like GTA, PES, Wipeout, Ridge Racer and GT5 coming or available on it's hand held I guess it's success is not that much of a surprise. GTA:San Andreas sold by the bucketload so to see GTA Liberty City Stories flogging loads of PSP's was to be expected.
 
MrBlofeldt said:
I personally think Ninty's problems are a direct result of their poor third party support and their attitude to Europe.

The big N make some quality games that are (usually) original and innovative, and are gnerally the big selling point for an Nintendo XYZ console, unfortunately some of their games have not been quite as innovative and original of late, given that, you would expect third party companies to balance out the success of their consoles with equal amounts of good quality original products, not the case with Nintendo. Who seem to make it very difficult for smaller games companies to write for their products.

Consequently I think M$ and Sony are beating the big N on sales of under-the-TV-consoles, particularly in Europe. Add in Nintendo's poor attitude toward Europe.... games released months after they have been elsewhere, some games not even released, other features not brought out to European markets. I guess I would agree with Cas that the handhelds are probably keeping Ninty afloat, they are priced at an affordable level, they are aimed pretty much at the kiddy market and the games are pretty good. The PSP, seems to me, to be overpriced, not just the handheld, but the games/movies/bits-n-pieces all seem very expensive, not really within most kiddies (or their parents) budgets.

On a final note, Ninty is rumoured to be launching the revolution sometime this year, I do hope it is a big success, I would hate to see Nintendo go the same way as Sega !:)

Agreed on most points, but I can't agree that the PSP console is overpriced, considering Sony are actually selling it at a loss.

The games and UMD movies are way overpriced however.
 
I think there's a significant misconception of Nintendo's sales performance. World wide Nintendo consoles sales are higher than M$ & $ony put together.
 
Repo said:
I think there's a significant misconception of Nintendo's sales performance. World wide Nintendo consoles sales are higher than M$ & $ony put together.

But no doubt that includes handhelds which isn't really comparing like-for-like when looking at MS and Sony.
 
The majority of PSPs on eBay are ALL imports and there are thousands and thousands of these sold every day. This could result in a noticable change in figures - especially over a period of 1 and a bit years since the PSPs Jap launch... however, the DS is seeing far fewer eBay import sales and so i think this could affect the results a lot..
 
Nintendo marketing has (for once) been up to scratch. The big N realise that they can't throw millions upon millions at advertising and big licenses etc. They are now focusing on getting more people who normally don't play games to try them. Nintendogs is a great example of this, I don't think there has ever been a time that there are so many girls owning consoles and playing games.

If you were to take away the sales of these consoles ie the Nintendogs bundle, then I suspect the numbers would be more even.
 
Note that the overseas price of the PSP is A LOT lower than over here. You can get a white PSP in the shops of akihabara in Tokyo for as little as 120 quid. Here it's 200-ish for a "value-pack". So I do believe that the console is overpriced in Europe. But that probably goes under the "more-expensive-than-the-world-Britain"...

Also, in my opinion, one of the reasons why the PSP sold that much, is because it looks cool. *off-topic rant - Why do people buy ipods? Because they look cool as a gadget. You noticed how many people have white earplugs in the tube? It's horrible, especially given the great competition* so it's the same deal with PSPs. I own both, because you get different games. I want GTA and I want Phoenix Wright. Best of both worlds.

Price-difference. The target-audience. It is very obvious that SCEE have realised that people will spend the cash when they want cool-looking toys. Just look at ipod sales (sorry) and flat-panel sales. It doesn't need to be good to sell, just looking cool is enough. The DS is aimed at a gaming audience, not at the gadget audience. And to be very honest, I have shedloads of good DS games, and apart from GTA on PSP? Play golf? nah.. that's for useless bank managers...:D
 
I think the marketing side is a big clincher tbh. I have a PSP now (they eventually brought out some good stuff :) ), but I know three people who'd never even buy a game system at all, that now have DS's due to Nintendogs word of mouth. Price, name (Nintendo handhelds still have a reputation above anyone else), people who game pretty much having to get one for games like Trauma Centre, I know i'm considering it.

And the ipod's as good as, if not better value than the players around it now./ PLus, it's always been one of the better players, it's just that some people think they are so cool if they rubbish the popular.
 
Ratinho said:
And the ipod's as good as, if not better value than the players around it now./ PLus, it's always been one of the better players, it's just that some people think they are so cool if they rubbish the popular.

sorry but iPods are not good value for money.
The 30gb video iPod is £200, and for an extra 30 quid, you can have a better screen, better resolution when using the TV out, more video codecs supported, ability to buy music from nearly all online stores, etc etc (zen vision:M).
The 1GB nano - £109, enough said - when you can get better 1GB players for around 50 quid less.

I know this is the PSP section, but that had to be said.
 
So for £230 you can have some debatable improvements (it's more down to your ability to encode than anything else on the TV side. Slightly baffled why anyone would use either of these for TV out when it's definitely more advisable to go fro an Archos Model), or get a 60GB ipod model for £70 more than that. Hmmmmmmm.....And anyone buying ipod nano's/zen nanos, or any of the other gimmicky 'name' flash players needs thetre head looking at anyway tbh. Not sure about the great online stores that you can't play the music from though...or is this the myth that you can only play music from itunes or ripped from CD on an ipod?

ipod hate on the whole, is born out of people needing to hate things that are popular. You can pick out any singular example you want to prove a point, anyone can.

I'd advise anyone to check Cnet's reviews before they listen to any of us anyway.

I know this is the PSP section, but that had to be said.

:rotfl:
 
Bloody hell people, just because Nintendo isn't popular here doesn't mean it isn't in other contries, it sells much better in other european countries, the US and Japan and Nintendo as a games publisher has sold more software in the past year than any other software company, they aint going anywhere.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom