Jugaccino

Analyst Michael Pachter has started the Nintendo DS 2 rumour mill, claiming that Nintendo is set to launch a new handheld device at the end of this year.

The Wedbush Morgan executive’s claim follows the financial results from Nintendo released yesterday, which showed a 34 percent rise in profits, but also showed that sales have declined in Japan. He say’s the boom period is over now for DS.

As reported by GamesIndustryBiz, DS sales in the US and Europe still remain strong, and Pachter predicts the majority of the DS’s shipped during the rest of the fiscal year will go to these territories, while Nintendo prepare to launch new hardware in Japan.

“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,” said Pachter.“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.”

It has been speculated previously that Nintendo will need to release new hardware once sales of the DS reach their peak, following in the footsteps of Apple, who are always looking to upgrade the hardware of the iPod.

Pachter’s predictions sound feasible, but I’m afraid to say that now we have to play the waiting game

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 8:47 am and is filed under Nintendo DS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.