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UK DS sales over a million!

ziran

Member
http://www.mcvuk.com/newsitem.php?id=725

DS is UK millionaire

09:45, Jan 20th by Johnny Minkley

Nintendo today landed the latest blow in its fierce handheld battle with Sony, declaring that DS sales have officially passed the one million mark in the UK.

The milestone comes after rival PSP overtook the UK DS installed base for the first time last week according to Chart-Track data. But it’s understood that the ChartTrack figures did not include Toys R Us, which has been a major contributor to the recent strong sales of the DS.

"It's been a phenomenal year for Nintendo handhelds and we're especially pleased with DS reaching this milestone,” UK marketing director Dawn Paine told MCV.
Gaybrush and The Colonel were right:
http://www.ga-forum.com/showpost.php?p=2612947&postcount=186
http://www.ga-forum.com/showpost.php?p=2613766&postcount=206

Great news for DS :)


Official PR:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/press_release.php?aid=14195
Nintendo DS Hits 1 Million Sales In The UK
Press release supplied by Games Press 14:01 20/01/2006

20 January 2006

Nintendo UK has today announced that 1 million units of its Nintendo DS handheld console are in the hands of gamers across the country. The announcement is just another highlight in a long line of successes throughout 2005 where the Nintendo DS has led the handheld market not only in the UK but across the globe. Many stores across the UK are continuing to report they are sold out of Nintendo DS until new stock arrives in the coming week.

Following Nintendo DS's launch in Europe in March 2005, almost three and a half million Nintendo DS units have been sold. Worldwide sales have shown a similar pattern with millions of people turning to Nintendo for their portable gaming. Approximately 13 million* Nintendo DS were in the hands of people all around the world by the end of December 2005, leaving any competition standing.

UK sales of the Nintendo DS have been significantly bolstered by the launch of ground breaking games such as Nintendogs, which has sold over 1.6 million copies in Europe since launch in October and Mario Kart DS which stormed the Christmas charts selling 800,000 copies in Europe since its late November launch.

UK gamers have a lot to look forward to in 2006, including Animal Crossing: Wild World which has been a huge success in Japan having already sold over one million copies and is launching soon in the UK.

The Nintendo DS is available for around £89. Mario Kart DS and Nintendogs are now available for around £30 and both games are also available in bundle packs (including a copy of the game and a Nintendo DS), available for around £99.

Click onto www.nintendo-europe-media.com for all of the most up to date official information on Nintendo.

*Combined sell-thru numbers in Japan, North America, Latin America, Australia and other territories.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
So really, only Japan can be the deciding factor on which handheld is winning worldwide as both handhelds are selling pretty evenly everywhere else in the world.
 

Ghost

Chili Con Carnage!
Ive still never seen one in public.

wtf is up with that?


Ive seen a few PSPs, mainly on the train, ipod videos, GBAs, i saw a bloody Gizmondo the other day, but no DS'.
 

AniHawk

Member
Ghost said:
Ive still never seen one in public.

wtf is up with that?


Ive seen a few PSPs, mainly on the train, ipod videos, GBAs, i saw a bloody Gizmondo the other day, but no DS'.

It's probably because you're not in elementary school.
 
I know i bought mine from Toys R' Us, they had a great deal with MK bundle and Sonic Rush that a poster put up on GAF and I just had to buy it.
 
Ghost said:
Ive still never seen one in public.

I've seen a lot more people playing DSs on the train than PSP. The few people I've seen with PSPs have been using them to watch movies or listen to music (i think)
 

Xellotah

Member
Anecdotal evidence ahoy.

I've seen the PSPs quite regularly on the tube recently. Discounting my own DS, I've only seen schoolchildren carry them in public.
 

Mook1e

Member
jj984jj said:
So really, only Japan can be the deciding factor on which handheld is winning worldwide as both handhelds are selling pretty evenly everywhere else in the world.
I don't know, didn't The Colonel say that DS was stomping on PSP in continental EU?

Something like:
~2.5 million DS
~1.5 million PSP
 
jj984jj said:
So really, only Japan can be the deciding factor on which handheld is winning worldwide as both handhelds are selling pretty evenly everywhere else in the world.

Well consider how fast the PSP has caught up to the DS in territories outside of Japan. It'll be interesting to see how this year will turn out for each system.
 
Just out of curiosity does "ChartTrack figures did not include Toys R Us" mean a) that they didn't figure in Toys R Us at all, b) that they extrapolate the sales figures of Toys R Us in a way like 'overall Toys R Us has a market share of 10%, so we'll add that to the DS sales' or c) that they extrapolate the sales based on market share AND various other things (things like what is actually being sold [a DS will most likely sell better than a PSP in Toys R Us compared to a store like EBgames], special deals etc.)?

Anyways, great number :D DS is dead in Europe, it's absolutely obvious :lol
 
So, Chartrack is off by 25%. 800k vs 1M

That's a pretty major discrepancy and it probably filters down to the software lists as well. Given that TRU doesn't have near that much market share in the UK, it must be that the whole system is off.
 

AniHawk

Member
sonycowboy said:
So, Chartrack is off by 25%. 800k vs 1M

That's a pretty major discrepancy and it probably filters down to the software lists as well. Given that TRU doesn't have near that much market share in the UK, it must be that the whole system is off.
No, this recent news is probably guys furthering the Nintendo agenda. Notice how now, when they've sold 1,000,000 is when they speak up.
 
Hmm, DS had two weeks in this year, so they sold quite a few units during that time (combined perhaps 50k?). So Charttracks totals would be at 850k, which would give TRU a market share of 15%. I have no idea at all how much market share TRU overall has in the UK, but if I would have to guess, I would say that 15% doesn't sound unrealistic at all with a Nintendo system.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
sonycowboy said:
So, Chartrack is off by 25%. 800k vs 1M

A little OT, but if the real figure is 1 million and they say 800k, does that make them 20% wrong, or 25 percent wrong? I never new how that worked.
 

Xellotah

Member
Don't forget that TRU is a toy company and the DS was a hot toy over Christmas, so I wouldn't be surprised that TRU would have such a large percentage of DS sales when compared to the dedicated game stores.
 

starship

psycho_snake's and The Black Brad Pitt's B*TCH
I think retailers such as GAME have PSP favor while DS is big in retailers such as TRU, so its understandable that Charttrack is off by that margin as far as DS sales.
 

ziran

Member
catfish said:
A little OT, but if the real figure is 1 million and they say 800k, does that make them 20% wrong, or 25 percent wrong? I never new how that worked.
it makes their 800k figure 25% wrong (200k).

the % error is usually based on the initial, incorrect, figure given.
 
catfish said:
A little OT, but if the real figure is 1 million and they say 800k, does that make them 20% wrong, or 25 percent wrong? I never new how that worked.

It does make the numbers Charttrack gave out 25% wrong, but the TRU market share in this scenario (DS selling 0 according to Charttrack in the first two weeks of 2006 in the UK) would be 20%.
 

Izzy

Banned
Frankfurter said:
Just out of curiosity does "ChartTrack figures did not include Toys R Us" mean a) that they didn't figure in Toys R Us at all, b) that they extrapolate the sales figures of Toys R Us in a way like 'overall Toys R Us has a market share of 10%, so we'll add that to the DS sales' or c) that they extrapolate the sales based on market share AND various other things (things like what is actually being sold [a DS will most likely sell better than a PSP in Toys R Us compared to a store like EBgames], special deals etc.)?

Anyways, great number :D DS is dead in Europe, it's absolutely obvious :lol

It's b - they gross their figures up by 20%. Nintendo claim it should be more.
 

Izzy

Banned
sonycowboy said:
So, Chartrack is off by 25%. 800k vs 1M

That's a pretty major discrepancy and it probably filters down to the software lists as well. Given that TRU doesn't have near that much market share in the UK, it must be that the whole system is off.

Since when is Chart Track's DS LTD HW figure 800k?
 

AniHawk

Member
Izzy said:
Since when is Chart Tracks's DS LTD HW figure 800k?

There was that one thread and the DS just came out in 2005, so that would make it LTD, but probably more appropriately YTD 2005.
 

Izzy

Banned
AniHawk said:
There was that one thread and the DS just came out in 2005, so that would make it LTD, but probably more appropriately YTD 2005.

Yeah, but the current numbers are (obviously) higher.
 

Izzy

Banned
Frankfurter said:
Ok, thx :)

So 20% is their actual market share or was this just an example?

TRS marketshare should be at 16-17% (grossing actual figures by 20% and all) - but according to Nintendo it's > than that. :)
 
Izzy said:
TRS marketshare should be at 16-17% (grossing actual figures by 20% and all) - but according to Nintendo it's > than that. :)


Well, the point is more, that Chartrack is already extrapolating based on TRU sales. Let's say that TRU's market share is 10% ~normally. So, the Chartrack figures would already include an allocation assuming TRU sales. So, if TRU actually sold better than their "allocation" of Nintendo products by 100%, that would still only be a 10% discrepancy in overall numbers.

(Simple example)

Charttrack says DS sold 100k
Charttrack assumes DS sold 10k at TRU
TRU actually sold 20k.

Actual sales would then be 110k, so a 10% discrepancy even though TRU sold twice as well than anywhere else. And, even though we regularly talk about products selling better at one place than another, YOU NEVER see a 100% kind of discrepancy. Statisically, it never happens. When we were getting Best Buy numbers, it was determined that Xbox sold proportionally better there than in NPD and that still only accounted for a 3-4% differential, not 100%.

And to get to a 25% descrepancy, the non-covered retailers would need to sell 3.5 times better than covered retailers.

What Nintendo's numbers would seem to indicate is that Charttrack's numbers have ALOT more problems than simply TRU. Which is strange, because I had heard that ChartTrack covered 80% of retailers in the UK.
 

Izzy

Banned
sonycowboy said:
Well, the point is more, that Chartrack is already extrapolating based on TRU sales. Let's say that TRU's market share is 10% ~normally. So, the Chartrack figures would already include an allocation assuming TRU sales. So, if TRU actually sold better than their "allocation" of Nintendo products by 100%, that would still only be a 10% discrepancy in overall numbers.

(Simple example)

Charttrack says DS sold 100k
Charttrack assumes DS sold 10k at TRU
TRU actually sold 20k.

Actual sales would then be 110k, so a 10% discrepancy even though TRU sold twice as well than anywhere else. And, even though we regularly talk about products selling better at one place than another, YOU NEVER see a 100% kind of discrepancy. Statisically, it never happens. When we were getting Best Buy numbers, it was determined that Xbox sold proportionally better there than in NPD and that still only accounted for a 3-4% differential, not 100%.

And to get to a 25% descrepancy, the non-covered retailers would need to sell 3.5 times better than covered retailers.

What Nintendo's numbers would seem to indicate is that Charttrack's numbers have ALOT more problems than simply TRU. Which is strange, because I had heard that ChartTrack covered 80% of retailers in the UK.

Well - it is strange, and a huge (abnormal even) discrepancy. For all I know, SCEE (and even MS) never had problems with Chart Track numbers. Hell, ELSPA are using them for their annual report.
 

Apenheul

Member
Maybe:
- TRU advertised the DS a lot in the holidays
- TRU had some great deals
- TRU is a toy company, and the first place parents think of when buying gifts for their children
 

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
nubbe said:
What happend to Gaybrush anyway? Seem like he disappeared whit Jim Merrick! Hmm...
Are you saying Jim Merrick was sacked because he leacked Nintendo figures on GAF with this Gaybrush nickname? :lol
 

cvxfreak

Member
Apenheul said:
Maybe:
- TRU advertised the DS a lot in the holidays
- TRU had some great deals
- TRU is a toy company, and the first place parents think of when buying gifts for their children

Nintendo itself has actuall acknowledged the WalMart excuse in the past. I don't know why people write it off, myself.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
SolidSnakex said:
Well consider how fast the PSP has caught up to the DS in territories outside of Japan. It'll be interesting to see how this year will turn out for each system.
Yes it will. Software is what will determine which way the sales ultimately go this year, the DS was doing horribly in the beginning of 2005 and continued that way until Nintendogs and Advance Wars launched, and then it kept holding it's own against the PSP which already had a big launch line-up in EU and NA.

Even though it was more then just the software that contributed to the change in sales for the DS, if sales continue this way, the PSP and DS should remain about even in NA and in the UK. I'm not sure about the rest of Europe though.
 

Ronok

Member
Ok consider this....... Game shops in the UK give DS about this much space in the UK | |. Now lets just say TRU give DS this much space | |..... Now if games consoles sell in acordance to the amount of shelf space they are given, isn't it possible for such a big discrepency to occur?
 

_PsiFire_

Member
5 people, other than myself, own a DS at my workplace..

1 person owns a PSP..

My multiplay-ing needs are met - how about that PSP guy?? :D
 
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