Wii Spot Podcast from WiiSpot.com

“It didn’t set the world on fire, but I don’t think we were expecting it to,”
- Dorian Bloch, ChartTrack.

With many an eager Nintendo fan sprinting towards their local games emporium Friday June 23rd, just how well did the Ds Lite do at launch?

Expectations for the system to sell out due to stock shortages at the DS Lite’s launch were rife, but it now appears this wasn’t the case. The official figures from ChartTrack show that the redesigned system sold in the region of 35,000 units on its debut weekend in the United Kingdom, which many are citing as barely spectacular mainly due to the recent situation in Japan regarding the popularity of the portable.

As I’m sure a lot of you are aware, Nintendo fortunately graced us Europeans with two different colour schemes for the console; both “Apple” white and “Gloss” black, which left many customer asking ‘Which version to purchase?’ Well it seems both colours were neck and neck with each other throughout the launch, as according to ChartTrack sales were split 50/50 between the two versions.

In response to the DS Lite’s “unspectacular” Uk Launch, ChartTracks Dorian Block had this to say:

You can call it good as they’ve managed to sell 35,000 even though the football’s on. I tend to think it doesn’t make much difference to what the year total will be, because those who haven’t bought it yet will buy it as soon as their attention has moved on from something else.

As it stands by all accounts it wasn’t the launch Nintendo hoped it would be, but with the New Super Mario Bros receiving excellent reviews and due for release here on Friday (30 June) customers may just find themselves trailing from store to store next week, in the search of that elusive black or white DS Lite…

Sickr