Nintendo still struggling to meet demand for DS
There's no stopping it
More than three years after its first release, it seems the DS is still struggling to meet demand, with retailers in the UK complaining about stock allocation after 587,600 of the little beauties flew from shelves worldwide in February.
According to Nintendo marketing director Dawn Paine, these are numbers one would normally expect to see in the run-up to Christmas, and sales are continuing to grow, despite every person on earth now owning an average of 1.3 DSs each.
Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but DS sales worldwide (currently at around 65m) are still sufficient to put one in the hands of every person currently living in the UK, with enough left over to similarly furnish Finland.
"What we sold last week on DS is what previously would have been sold in November," Paine told MCV, "So hopefully retail will understand that it is presenting stock challenges for us."
Predictably, independent retailers have felt the brunt of the shortages, but Paine was quick to assuage persecution fears. "The independent retail community is just as important to us as any one of our other partners," Paine said. "Each and every retailer brings something different to the party."
