Hacking the PSP Blog

Off Topic: DS Lite is a hit in the US, but is Nintendo getting any new customers?

It's clear already that Nintendo will most likely have a hit on their hands with the DS Lite. No big surprise there—the original DS sold very well, and the DS Lite is so popular in Japan it's almost uncanny. Right now Japanese stores are selling US units, and ironically have instructions on how to change the language back to Japanese. Didn't I just have that issue when I imported my system? 

It doesn't matter; the point is the DS Lite is hot. 135,000 units have been sold in the US in just two days, and that's not bad for a remake of a portable system. It's more proof that we're willing to pay for incremental improvements to our portable electronics. At this point I'm starting to feel like an Apple fan I buy so many Nintendo handhelds. 

I think the question we have to ask is the following: will the DS Lite actually expand Nintendo's market penetration when it comes to portable systems? The real story isn't how good the DS Lite is doing, the big unknown quantity is how many DS Lites sold are going to people who didn't own a DS, and how many people are trading in their old DS fats to upgrade into the Lite? While this means more DS systems in total are out in the wild, has the number of consumers buying games increased?

Just in case you want a fun history lesson you can check out our review of the first DS unit, along with the now-hilarious comments, and of course the much more recent DS Lite review. 

Source: Opposable Thumbs

So, Sudoku isn't Japanese?

Reading an article in theSun yesterday gives me the impression that sudoku's Swedish, American, New Zealand, British and Japanese promoters have all a claim in its birth and popularity that stretch across two centuries. And it was a computer software that propelled it to stardom today!



I first saw the sudoku craze in London last year – from airport lounge to bookshops and newspaper pages that syndicate crossword puzzles – thinking that it has spread from Japan to England. Wrong. From the write-up I now realise that, last year, sudoku became a regular feature in a newspaper in New York, and that completes sudoku's westward travel around the world, from 1979 to 2005, starting from America to Japan, and then from Japan to England.

Read the full article here.

Capcom Sends Customer Barbeque Utensils!

A customer recently wrote in to Capcom customer service with some gripes about their recent PSP release of Monster Hunter Freedom. The next week he received a barbeque utensil kit from them.

Read the whole article here...