DSi pre-orders twice as high as DS

According to a VentureBeat interview with GameStop senior vice president Bob McKenzie, there have been around twice as many pre-orders for the DSi as there were for the original DS, although he didn’t say anything about the DS Lite - the first edition to go on sale after the initially unpreposessing handheld established itself.

In the same interview, McKenzie goes on to assuage possible concerns that the DSi will sell out, Wii-style. “It feels like [Nintendo is] going to have good quantities to support not only the launch but also some replenishment right behind it,” he says.

VentureBeat also asks him about the future of the DS, on which subject he has nothing but praise for Nintendo. “I think they’ve done a good job of anticipating the demand from the consumer,” he says, “and the $30 price differential will definitely continue to give some life to the DS system that is out now.

“At $149 it’s a great value, and one of the key differences for a lot of consumers that have older Game Boy Advance libraries is that they’ll need to hold on to their DS to play those games. […] I see that there’s a market for both of them. As far as a price drop, I don’t know. I think that at $149, it feels like it’s still a pretty good value.”