In today’s financial news, we have Nintendo kicking ass and taking names… again, and it’s all because of that shiny white beauty the Nintendo DS. I think even god must have one by now, because I could have sworn I spied Ken Kuturagi hammering away at Cooking Mama between PS3 pressers the other day. The man loves cartoony cooking games almost as much as he does dropping bombastic, supercilious quotes about irrelevant gaming machines, what can I say?
But I digress; Nintendo has upped its profits forecast 20%, on the basis of strong DS sales and a positive outlook for Wii. DS games sales now targeted to hit 82 million units, up 9% from previous forecasts. Not to be outdone — and not quite dead yet — Game Boy Advance sales have been projected north by 32% (!?) to 3.3 million units.
This whole post goes in line with what Blake said this morning at the ungodly hour of 2:47 a.m. — that the DS’s success has influenced people’s optimism about the Wii. I, for one, agree. These numbers are impossible to ignore. The Wii certainly has hype building with its new take on gaming, but it’d be foolish for me to not see the DS as a very successful pre-emptive attack on the industry.