According to Joystiq, the Nintendo DS has become Japan’s fastest selling video game console ever with nearly 8% of the Japanese population owning one. It is reportedly outselling all other video game consoles in Japan combined.
Now seems as good a time as any to look back with fondness at the day I realized that the Nintendo DS was poised to dominate: August 22, 2005. This day marked the simultaneous release of the first three versions of Nintendogs and Advanced Wars: Dual Strike, the latter of which I am currently playing and enjoying to no end. Though Advance Wars: DS is arguably a better game, Nintendogs brought non-gamers in droves as did Brain Age after it. The release of New Super Mario Bros. in May of this year sealed the deal by bridging the gap between modern and classic gamers.
In all this time, there have been a large number of great third-party games that have been mostly overlooked. The platform released in 2004 is just now picking up steam thanks to Nintendo’s innovative first-party releases, and many who ignored the original DS launch are now searching for copies of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Meteos, and others. The early showing of support by these third-party companies is starting to pay off again as demand for these titles has increased during the dry summer months while gaming studios that predicted that the PSP would own the portable market are likely scrambling to bring their first worthy title to the DS.
With news about the Wii’s release date and price on the horizon (if I were a betting man, I’d bet on the keynote at Leipzig), Nintendo is poised to make a remarkable comeback in the home console industry. Only this time Nintendo won’t have to do all the persuasion by themselves. According to IGN, Ubisoft is preparing not two but seven titles for the Wii launch window. Talk about a strong vote of support; with Red Steel, Rayman: Raving Rabbids, Far Cry, Blazing Angels, Monster 4×4, and GT Pro in development specifically for the Wii, I wonder who is the fanboy here, Ubisoft, or the guy with the Nintendo-themed blog?
Moreover with Rayman: Raving Rabbids stealing the cover story for the September issue of Nintendo Power and recent whispers of improved swordplay and user-scalable aiming sensitivity in Red Steel, it’s clear that Ubisoft is going to have a nice Christmas. In fact, I think we all will.
