Laser Sharks

Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers franchise has been wildly successful since its launch on the Nintendo 64. The original Nintendo 64 game sold approximately 2.5 million copies. Super Smash Brothers Melee, the Gamecube successor,  broke previous expectations garnering higher scores from game critics and selling just short of 4 million copies.

The latest entry to the Super Smash Brothers franchise certainly holds up well compared to its predecessors. Super Smash Brothers: Brawl has already sold 2.7 million copies. In the first month since its release, Brawl has outsold the entire run of the Nintendo 64 Version and sold over 70% of the units of the Smash Brothers game sold on Gamecube.

Below is the NPD data comparing each version’s sales.

Overall, Nintendo has had a great March. The video game powerhouse has the top selling game for the month of March with Super Smash Brothers.  Nintendo also had the two bestselling consoles worldwide - the Wii and the DS, which each sold about 700,000 units.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Sony will launch a slimmer model of its PSP handheld in September, in another attempt to ignite demand for its game hardware and compete better with competitor, Nintendo. Sony and Nintendo both released their handhelds late in 2004.

The PSP plays movies, music, and games while the DS has two screens and touch sensitivity to play games. PSP sales have never quite been par with DS sales, however. Nintendo sold a whopping 23.6 million DS units this last year ending in March, while Sony only moved a measly (by comparison) 8.4 million units.

So, of course, Sony said,”What can we do to match Nintendo’s success? Oh, I know, we can copy what Nintendo already did and make a smaller, lighter PSP. Brilliant!” The new PSP will be 33% lighter and 19% slimmer. It will also retail for $170 dollars compared to the DS Lite’s $130. Unfortunately, it will still lack the much-wanted second analog stick. Oh well, guess we’ll just have to wait for the PSP2, or PSPNew, or whatever Sony will call it.

Popularity: 5% [?]