Iwata: DS market not saturated

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Not content with selling its handheld by the bucket-load, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata reckons there are still millions of potential DS owners out there, and says he'd like to see "each family member" have their own unit.

"Some say the market for the DS is saturated, but I disagree," he said.

"In Japan, a country with a population of 127 million, we've sold 23 million DS units," he told The Yomiuri Shimbun.

"The United States is inhabited by over 300 million people, and there are more than 490 million people in the European Union. Sales of the product could grow further in foreign countries considering their populations.

"The number of people playing games is rapidly increasing in Europe, where the penetration of games had been slow," he added.

"In Germany, bookstores have opened Nintendo sections and Wii software has sold well. I'd also like to focus on emerging markets such as Russia and India."

While we don't have DS hardware sales figures for 2008, of 82.8 million games sold in the UK last year almost a quarter (19.1m) were DS titles, and you can by them in book shops over here, too.

Nintendo's latest DS iteration, DSi, is scheduled for its European release this spring, when it'll no doubt sell out in record time.

Tom Ivan