You know things are going badly for sales of DS games in Europe when Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games doesn't get a look-in in most European charts.
The launch of numerous big titles in the last few weeks (Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, and now Grand Theft Auto IV) has seen more and more software for the handheld slide ominously down the charts, and this week only the two Brain Training games register consistently high positions.
So hey, we figure that the DS needs a hero to save it. Somebody who's smart and savvy. Somebody who won't stand down, even in the face of immeasurable odds. Ladies and gentlemen, we present you with Apollo Justice, ace attorney and star of next week's DS releases. Series continuity be damned, we want a high position for this! Spin past the break for lots of European chartage.
To tell you the truth, we never knew you folks in the UK got your own version of American Gladiators. Growing up, we would catch the show after our usual dose of Saturday morning entertainment, as the sugar would take effect from all of the Lucky Charms we had while catching our toons, fueling our thirst to see folks get knocked into the water during Joust or tossed down several flights on the gigantic pyramid. Oh, to be young again.
But, hey, with the show's revival here in the States, it kind of feels like that again, if only a little. And now, with some thanks to Nintendo, our friends across the pond can partake in bulky men and woman tossing around scrawny participants, too! Nintendo has shelled out £1m to make sure you can get your Gladiator fix, ensuring that those of you watching in the UK won't get the annoying ads that we do in between the carnage. Instead, you'll see ads for Wii and other Nintendo-related goodies. Better, no?
For a continent that gave the world tiramisu, Audrey Tautou, and the Renaissance, Europe sure does disappoint us at times. Yep, it's another week of gray, predictable drudgery when it comes to sales of DS software.
All you truly need to know is that More Mario & Dr. Kawashima's Olympics Training sold really, really well, and almost everything we care about didn't. Except for Animal Crossing: Wild World, which popped in to the German top ten, and Mario Kart DS, which secured eighth place in Ireland, and fifth in Germany. So maybe the world isn't all that rubbish, after all. And if you really believe that, we advise you go and rent Eurotrip.
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
It's business as usual for the DS in Euroland, where Brain Training and Mario & Sonic have once again ruthlessly harvested the wallets of gullible (probably non-DS Fanboy-reading) consumers. We would love to suggest that this madness will end soon, but Brain Training has been around these parts for almost two years now, while the for-real Olympics will surely only boost people's interest in assaulting their DS's poor touch screen. In a word: gah.
More pleasingly, there's been a mini-renaissance for (of all games) Mario Kart DS. Sales of the game rose in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and Sweden, and we're pinning this sudden rebirth on the success of Mario Kart Wii, which continues to run down the opposition at an alarming pace. Then reverse back over it, just to make sure.
More charts await your attention past the break, though we're sorry to say that the Spanish top ten is taking a siesta this week (see what we did there?). With any luck, it'll be back next Saturday.
News of a European release date for Super Smash Bros. Brawl has dominated coverage of Nintendo's latest European release schedule, but there are a number of tasty morsels on the list for DS owners.
For a start, the continent will finally be getting Atlus roguelike Etrian Odyssey, and it's about time -- lest we forget, the title made its U.S. debut last May! Notably, there are also dates (of varying specificity) for Race Driver: GRID (May), the new Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games (July 4th), New International Track & Field (Q2 2008), and Cooking Guide: Can't Decide What to Eat? (June), the European version of Cooking Navi. "ArchimDS" appears on the list as well, though we presume this refers to LOL, or Bakushow as it'll be known in Euroland.
Add all of those to this morning's Final Fantasy IV announcement, and Europe has quite the line-up of games to look forward to. Check past the break for the full list!
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
The emergence of Mario Kart Wii this weekcaused tremors throughout the charts, something that didn't bode well for the DS. Apparently, training your brain has become a far less appealing pastime now that you can perform cartwheels on a bike as a giant ape, whereas Mario & Sonic could only hang on to third spot pretty much ... everywhere. As usual, the MIA titles are a greater source of interest, with Assassin's Creed failing to chart anywhere on its opening week.
Next week sees a sudden rush of shovelware (and we bet The Sun Crossword Challenge does really well, depressingly), and The World Ends With You.
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
Old Kawashima's not wrong, you know -- well, as far as the DS goes anyway. Y'see, Europe is all about Gran Turismo 5: Prologue this week, but when it comes to Nintendo's handheld, the not-for-profits Prof (along with Mario & Sonic) is making sure no other DS game gets a look-in. Oh sure, you have your Cooking Mama 2s and New Super Mario Bros.s sniffing around the fringes and occasionally racking up a top ten spot, but other than that, there's little resistance. So here's to next week, when hopefully Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles will make a dent in this tedium.
Oh, and if you're reading, Germany: Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Seriously?
Posted Apr 10th 2008 12:00PM by Eric Caoili Filed under: News
In a raid executed last Sunday, 85,000 "discs" of pirated software and other counterfeit goods were seized at an East Yorkshire market. One notable bit of contraband brought in by the haul was a pile of carts marked Volume 9 DS Games, each cart loaded with £6,000 ($11,859) of DS games according to the Entertainment Leisure And Software Publishers' Association's team of "forensics experts."
The ELSPA reports that the Volume 9 DS Games carts have been circulating for the past month and contain approximately 200 commercial releases, which explains where the £6,000 estimate sprung from (£30 x 200). We did the math -- well, actually, our calculators did the math -- and you would have to mow about 593 lawns to raise enough money to purchase that many games. That is, of course, assuming you're not one of our smart (and handsome) readers who follow our regular posts on video game bargains.
We know a few of you out there are pirates -- you make sure to rub it in our face whenever we lament about overpriced new releases and expensive imports. Have you bootlegged anything close to £6,000 of commercial DS games? Have you packed all those black-market ROMs into one cart to create your own Volume 9 DS Games collection? And how did you end up spending the money that should've gone to the people who worked hard to create the products you filched?
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
After a gray, unrelenting winter (for most of us in the unglamorous northern bits, anyway), the clocks went forward for Europe earlier this week, which we suppose means we're now fully immersed in spring (hence the daffodils, you see -- we really think longand hard about those pictures). Fittingly, the European sales charts are full of the joys of spring themselves!
Wait, no, hold on, we're lying again. Must stop lying. In reality, they're still pretty much unchanged from last week, with the one notable exception being Magic Made Fun (known as Master of Illusion in the U.S.) which debuted on the continent this week, where it reached 8th in Germany, and 7th in Spain -- we expected a little more from this sorcery sim, considering its catch-all appeal.
if you ever keep an eye on sales data in the far-off lands of Not Japan, then perhaps you know that the world loves the DS. It's just a great handheld system, no further explanation necessary. In the UK, the portable gaming system is selling as if it were the year-end holidays in the country, causing a bit of a strain on Nintendo's supply of handhelds to the region.
"What we sold last week on DS is what previously would have been sold in November – so hopefully retail will understand that it is presenting stock challenges for us," explains Nintendo's marketing director Dawn Paine. Yet the problem of keeping product out there on shelves is a problem for Nintendo at the moment, they couldn't be happier with the continued success. "But three years down the road from launch, the fact that our hardware sales are increasing is very pleasing." The one place you're still not allowed to have one, however, is prison.
Any of our UK readers notice the shops lacking DSes on their shelves?
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
The usual proliferation of training games and Mario & Sonic aside, there's been little in the way of interesting new DS releases in this week's charts. And by "little," we mean "nothing." Indeed, Ubisoft's Imagine: Babies is actually the highest new DS entrant in the UK (30th), Ireland (10th), and France (11th). Deflating, much?
Furthermore, with only Bunnyz, Dungeon Explorer: Warriors of Ancient Arts, George of the Jungle, Hurry Up Hedgehog, Neves, Teenage Zombies and Yu-Gi-Oh World Championship 2008 to come next week, we're not anticipating much change. People, we're hitting the mid-year drought -- for heaven's sake, give us a release date for Professor Layton already, Nintendo. Hit the break for the full chart lowdown.
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of Wii lovers.
Germany, we salute you! This week's chart from the land of the brätwurst will make excellent reading for Nintendo of Europe. Not only is Super Mario Galaxy showing it has legs by making an appearance in the top ten, but the top nine -- NINE! -- spots are occupied by DS titles. The presence of New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing Wild World speaks volumes for the proud German people. With all of this in mind, a picture of one of Germany's favorite icons seemed like the only appropriate image for this week's edition of Another Week in Europe. Plus, we totally love Knight Rider.
Elsewhere, there's a significant DS presence in the UK, Irish, and Dutch charts, while Baby Pals could only crawl to a humbling 25th spot in Britain. Suddenly, everything seems right with the world. Full charts (minus the Spanish one, which failed to materialize this week) await you after the break.
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
We applaud any video game ad that eschews the common official-art-and-screenshots approach, a template that's been in place for as long as we can remember. This week's piece abandons those conventions, marketing EA's SimCity DS port and its city-management features in a much more creative fashion. Expand you commercial zoning, lower industrial taxes, and join us past the break!
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
Imagine if Nintendo's Brain Training titles really did boost human intelligence. By now, Europe would be an entire continent of freakish, towering intellects, probably on the verge of world domination or something. Indeed, most of the region is still buying Dr. Kawashima's Brain Training, almost two years after it launched. Quite bizarrely, it's even outselling its own sequel in the majority of regions.
Apart from Nintendo's bonce-honing über-hit (notice how I casually throw my mad German skillz around the place), there's the usual suspects here, with Mario & Sonic, Cooking Mama 2, Professor Kageyama's Maths Training, and -- yaaay! -- New Super Mario Bros. all making a splash. That is, except in Sweden and Denmark, where apparently there's some kind of DS shortage. What?
While you dwell on the revelation that the DS doesn't rule every single corner of the world, go past the break for more European charts than you can shake a croissant at. Oh, and mentally prepare yourselves for next week. Why? Two words: Baby Pals. Eek!
Oxygen has revealed a new game headed to the DS in Hurry Up Hedgehog. While the thought of speedy hedgehogs often leads to a certain iconic gaming character, this title instead offers puzzles and is based on a board game. The title is currently scheduled for a March 28th release in the UK.
Head on past the break for the press release and hit up our gallery below for screens.
You know things are going badly for sales of DS games in Europe when Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games doesn't get a look-in in most European charts.
For a continent that gave the world tiramisu, Audrey Tautou, and the Renaissance, Europe sure does disappoint us at times. Yep, it's another week of gray, predictable drudgery when it comes to 
Featuring charts from across the region, 
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of Wii lovers.
Featuring charts from across the region, Another Week in Europe documents the buying habits and quirky tastes of a whole continent of DS lovers.
