Did anyone try and buy a DS in the three weeks following Christmas? Did you find one? LIAR! Well, maybe you’re honest and just incredibly lucky, because Reggie Fils-Aime has admitted Nintendo did not ship ANY DS Lites to North America during that time period.
From Spong:
Speaking about hardware sales in January, when the PSP almost caught up with the DS, Fils-Aime said, “Based on worldwide production numbers, the Americas ran out of stock of Nintendo DS essentially on the 25th of December. And we were not back in stock until sometime the second week in January. So, effectively three weeks the consumer could not get their hands on a Nintendo DS.” The sales figures for January show that the PSP sold 256,750 units, while the DS sold 288,000. Compared to February, when the DS outsold the PSP by three to one, that’s a very narrow lead.
All that said and done, Nintendo sold 1,761,500 DSs in December. I love the system, but that’s just out of control.