Just in case you didn't know, the DS owns the Japanese market. At today's Nintendo Media Summit, Reggie Fils-Aime dropped a major bomb: so far in 2007, half of all games sold in Japan have been for the DS. Yes, that was half. It may be time to move beyond the "it prints money" joke. We're not sure that really communicates this level of success. Also, the numbers of people over the age of 30 who are buying the DS are up -- if you look at DS adopters over 35, the statistics are huge: the numbers are up 212%.Looking at that, it's easy to guess why we're seeing more and more of what we jokingly refer to as "non-games" rolling out for the DS. A lot of these new gamers aren't as interested in traditional fare, and as the market expands, the type of games has to expand as well. Satoru Iwata had good reason to come down hard on NoA for not getting the U.S. market on the Brain Age train; everywhere else, the game continues to walk off shelves at alarming rates.
Reggie said they're seeing "significant market change" in the U.S., and we can only hope that means that, as the gaming market expands, so will gaming advertising. It's time DS commercials broke out of their Saturday morning slots and started marketing to the new gaming class: adults who like shooting zombies just as much as they like studying languages.
1. One bad thing about the 212% is that the quantity that it is up from is quite small :( Though selling over have the games in Japan is quite a feat.
Posted at 8:06PM on May 22nd 2007 by Tristan