When the new Nintendo DSi was announced by the company, it was met with a lot of criticisms and doubts. It's not that naysayers were just being, well, naysayers. The critics of the new Nintendo DSi actually had some valid points with regards to their reservations about the version of the handheld gaming system:
- The core Nintendo DS system already has 2 iterations, namely the original DS and the DS Lite. The market wouldn't be ready for a new Nintendo DSi.
- Introducing a new Nintendo DSi to the market barely 2 years since the release of the Nintendo DS Lite can be seen as a betrayal of the trust reposed to the company by Nintendo fans.
- The new Nintendo DSi may not include enough additional features that will warrant sales from people who already own an older Nintendo DS unitÖ and DS owners are aplenty, shrinking the potential market for the new portable.
Fast forward to the here and now, a few months after the release of the DSi, and we are left with a question:
How well has the new Nintendo DSi performed?
The answer to this question will tell us if the naysayers are incorrect with their naysay, or if Nintendo should have listened to its loyal flock.
How well has the new Nintendo DSi performed a less than a year since its release in the Western World?
One word: amazingly.
The Nintendo DSi was released in Japan in November of 2008, and as of March 31, 2009, Nintendo has sold 2.2 million copies of this portable. In the US, the new Nintendo DSi made its debut in April of 2009, and though it's too early to compute the sales figures for the handheld system, retailers all over the country have been reporting more than 330,000 preorders and almost 1 million copies sold. As of the end of April, 2009, total sales for the Nintendo DSi worldwide have reached 3.02 million.
This isn't bad at all, considering the adversity that the new Nintendo DSi has to contend with.
For starters, the DSi is primarily targeting non-DS owners. There are only a few avid gamers who don't own any of the older iterations of the Nintendo DS, since the line has sold more than 100 million copies since its original release.
Secondly, the DSi is also targeting existing DS owners. This would make the new Nintendo DSi a hard sell, considering that DS owners have gone through two previous iterations of the gaming system.
Thirdly, the DSi is likewise targeting casual gamers with the system's more mainstream functions like wireless browsing, audio playback, and dual cam support. However, the attention of casual gamers is also being wooed by other electronic gadgets such as mobile phone, PDAs, MP3 players and even a rival handheld gaming system.
Again, with all of these factors considered, we can say that - with the sales it has garnered - the new Nintendo DSi is a big success for the company.