Analyst: Nintendo May Soon 'Refresh' DS Hardware

***wraggster*** · April 26th, 2008, 20:47

Following Nintendo's latest fiscal results, Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian noted that Nintendo may consider a "refresh" to its DS handheld if sales continue to slow down.

"Nintendo expects to ship 28M DS handheld units in F2009, a decline from 30M units shipped in F2008. The forecasted year-over-year decline in DS hardware shipments in its fourth year on the market is in line with our expectations. We expect DS unit sales in the U.S. of 6.4M in 2008, and continue to believe our forecast may be conservative. According to its press release, Nintendo plans to accelerate DS sales momentum with further penetration into the consumer mass market and by introducing new software and services for the platform. Moreover, we believe Nintendo could launch a refresh of its handheld platform if sales momentum does not continue," Sebastian said.

He also noted that Nintendo's new projection of 25 million Wiis shipped in the new fiscal year implies a monthly production boost to 2.1 million units, which is consistent with what he recently told GameDaily BIZ regarding Nintendo's production plans.

Additionally, despite the first-party dominance on the Wii, publishers continue to flock to the console, Sebastian said: "While software sales on Nintendo Wii continue to be driven to some extent by first-party titles such as Wii Play, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy, we note that many third-party software publishers continue to increase development pipelines for Wii titles. This is consistent with our analysis of title economics that suggests that publishers should be able to tolerate lower retail pricing and attach rates on the Wii to a certain extent without sacrificing title profitability."

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/ne...ardware/?biz=1

**wiggy fuzz** · April 26th, 2008, 21:03

we don't want a "refresh" we want a whole new way more powerful handheld.

**____anders____** · April 26th, 2008, 23:50

Originally Posted by wiggy fuzz

we don't want a "refresh" we want a whole new way more powerful handheld.

i second that!

make it more powerful than the PSP, so we can kick their ass

**Danief** · April 27th, 2008, 00:20

does that mean that all of our homebrew stuff wouldnt work anymore?

**DarkJesus** · April 27th, 2008, 02:23

They just need another killer game. A new "Brain training". I don't mean a sequel, I mean a game that creates the same buzz.

**wiggy fuzz** · April 27th, 2008, 07:36

drain training...

**Echo1** · April 27th, 2008, 10:36

Analyst's talk nothing but arse.

**pas** · April 27th, 2008, 13:49

To be honest, I wanna see some good online titles and stuff (user createt map content like racedriver and worms 2 provide ?) done before seeing a new handheld, cause it is interesting to see how the devs work on low spec machines.

A redesign is ok thought.

**davidcrew** · April 27th, 2008, 16:21

Originally Posted by pas

To be honest, I wanna see some good online titles and stuff (user createt map content like racedriver and worms 2 provide ?) done before seeing a new handheld, cause it is interesting to see how the devs work on low spec machines.

A redesign is ok thought.

I don't really want to see a redesign of the nintendo ds, I want a redesign of the online community that nintendo uses.

Friend codes are $#@!ty, the ds headset never got used, and the online games I play on the ds I can count with one hand.

Seriously nintendo, don't redesign a decent selling console, try redesigning how your whole nintendo wifi system works. So much untapped potential there!