Andre Yoskowitz
15 Jan 2010 14:09
Nintendo will officially announce a "DS 2" handheld within 8 months, says top video game industry analyst Jesse Divnich, despite a record sales year for the DS/DSi in 2009.
"Even though the Nintendo DS posted a record year in 2009, EEDAR expects Nintendo to make an official announcement on the DS2 within the next eight months," wrote Divnich in a note. "Nintendo has always had a controlling stake in the handheld market, despite facing numerous competitors, and EEDAR believes one of the biggest reasons for Nintendo’s success in the handheld market is their ability to remove opportunity gaps for competitors to enter. Nintendo’s transition from the GBA to the DS, a year earlier than anticipated, was a brilliant strategy to remove any upper hand the Sony PSP could have by being first to market."
The new hardware will also help Nintendo to somewhat curb the piracy market, which will in turn give publishers more reason to invest in handheld gaming.
"Piracy continues to be an issue, not just for Nintendo, but for its third-party publishers as well. Whilst the release of the DSi has slowed down piracy, that slow down will only be temporary as hackers have already managed to bypass the new security systems built into the hardware," he added, via GI.biz.
Many publishers have said that they will continue to move money away from handhelds and towards consoles such as the XBox 360 and PS3, thanks to stronger sales.
Says Divnich: "Many publishers including Sega, Capcom, and now Ubisoft have all expressed that they may be reducing their exposure to Nintendo’s consoles, which will likely lead to heavy declines in both hardware and software sales for the Nintendo DS."