Wedbrush Morgan executive Michael Pachter looked into his crystal ball yet again when he noticed that Nintendo DS sales were slumping in Japan. He recently told gamesindustry.biz that he expects the slump to lead to a new handheld device at the end of the year.
It is likely that DS demand will continue to decline in Japan, and we think that Nintendo has a new handheld device ready for launch in that territory before the end of the calendar year. We think that the lion’s share of the expected 28 million DS hardware units shipped during the fiscal year will land in the US and Europe, and we expect to see strong software sales in those territories.
One thing that I’ve learned as handheld consumer is that anytime I want a device, there will be a revision immediately. It happened with my GameBoy Color, and it also happened mere months after I bought a DS originally. I can’t say that I’ve personally got an itch to get back into the market again, but Pachter knows what he is talking about. I wonder if he is suggesting a full redesign is coming? A third stylus screen would be pretty hip, Nintendo. Just saying.
