thats what i think it probably is as well because as everybody knows a few hundred thousand either way can jump prices all over the place and this is just a small decrease. my main issue is that i think its undervalued atm anyway and should be on the increase not decreasing.
so the two versions combined have already sold over 5million in the first three months and should still have another 4 months of good sales left until the olympics. current valuation puts the total of the two at 7.3million, meaning in the next four months its not going to sell 50% of what it did in three. yet this is still dropping in price? maybe its down to the breakdown on each system but even then i cant see the reasoning as the DS has a much higher install base. i know the wii will outsell the DS version as party games tend to do worse on the DS when compared to the Wii but i just cant see a valid reason for the price to be dropping.
Apart from having an entirely different control system, a rejigged multiplayer mode and not being as good, M&S DS is pretty much the same game as the Wii one. You play as one of 16 characters from the worlds of Mario and Sonic. In theory their skill-sets vary - some are strong, some are speedy and so on. But in practice (and as in the Wii game) it's hard to notice a great deal of difference between them.
Very interesting observation, Just_Ben. After reading your point about US vs Japan DS userbase, I realized that you are correct. The Japan DS userbase is significantly bigger than US (21 million vs 17.5 million, or a 17% decrease). It seems valid when you compare Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Japan (5.4 Million) vs US (estimate 4.2 Million), which is US = 80% of Japan.
Using that ratio, 80% of 140K (Japan's first two weeks from deftangel) = 112K. Therefore, I changed my long position into short for this one. Luckily, the price increased again since you posted your thought, so I got change to reverse my position.
About US economy, IMO, since the price point of DS game is only $30 or $35, it should be affected as much as games that are $50 or $60. It is possible that instead of 112K, it get 130K or more.
About Japan love Party games more than US, any data supporting the theory ? IIRC, Carnival games are doing very well in US, but have no Japan data to compare with. Mario Party 8 are doing phenomenal in US AND Japan.
Yes, I am one of them (I guess), but not the biggest player. I don't have that much invested. I take Japan as reference and come to other conclusions then people here. The current drop will be more or less caused by VGC numbers I assume,and they are pretty much what I was expecting. About 10 DKP for the first 2 weeks. Japan is way more DS crazy than the U.S. There is even a higher DS install base there then U.S. right? The Japanese love Party Games lately (more than the U.S).The "troubled" news on the economy should do the rest in term of sales, I guess. I think U.S. consumers begin to realize in what problems they basically are. True the FED and the government fight against the fall of the economy, but news are news, at least on the first hand.
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