DS Boosts Japanese Game Market In 2006

January 15th, 2007 Posted in Articles, Business, Nintendo DS, Portable, Software, Wii, Xbox 360

dslitecloseup.jpgIt’s not only in North America that 2006 was a record year for the gaming industry, Japan had a record year as well, where hardware sales were up 160 percent, and software sales up 125 percent. Famitsu reports that the DS was the best selling console in 2006, with over 7.5 million units sold. The PSP came second, with 1.9 million units, followed by the PS2, with 1.5 million units sold.

Nintendo was also the biggest publisher in 2006, selling 24.2 million games, followed by Square Enix with 6.2 million. The top 3 best selling titles were all DS games; Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, 4.3m units, New Super Mario Bros., 3.8m units, and Brain Training, 3.7m units sold. The launch of the PS3 and Wii also made a big impact on overall sales, reaching almost $2 billion in 2006.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Articles, Business, Nintendo DS, Portable, Software, Wii, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “DS Boosts Japanese Game Market In 2006”

  1. Jim2k Says:

    January 15th, 2007 at 11:47 pm

    Unbelievable, the DS sold what, almost 20 million units worldwide in 2006? Nintendo expects to sell 24 million in 2007, according to their financial report. I bet you in the middle of 2008 they’ll sell the 100 millionth DS. Or DS Lite 2.



  2. Evander Says:

    January 16th, 2007 at 6:13 am

    By late 2007-2008 they might come out with a whole new handheld, or some crazy mp3 player/handheld/swiss army knife/movieplayer/camera/microwave contraption.
    And imagine this, it will only be the size of DS now!

    But seriously, I could use something like that. I don’t even have a regular mp3 player, camera, handheld, swiss army knife, movie player or microwave. It’d be nice to have it all in one package.



  3. Jim2k Says:

    January 16th, 2007 at 9:32 am

    Yeah, there most likely is a new GameBoy in development, but it’s not supposed to compete with the DS, nintendo siad that.



  4. Ryudo Says:

    January 17th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Uh, the gameboy was on it’s last legs last year (i think), nintendo clearly stated this in one of it’s confrences last year, look it up if your intrested. They were going for a 3 pillar stratgey but since the ds had so much success they decided to cancel advancements on the GB.



  5. Evander Says:

    January 18th, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    Yeah, I wonder if they were as surprised about it’s success as others? Maybe that had a few back-up plans if it went in either direction.



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