DS Launch Titles Unveiled--Nintendo Expects Shortage

Nintendo to launch its new handheld with twelve competitively priced titles.

At the Nintendo Gamers Summit held today, Nintendo has unveiled its plans for the DS. As announced before, the dual-screened handheld will retail for $149.99 and launch on November 21, 2004. Although the company plans to ship one million DS units in the U.S., shortages are expected for the unique handheld.

"We will likely have some shortages," said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing.

The console itself won't be the only thing competitively priced, as Nintendo has also revealed that the games will retail for $29.99--possibly giving another edge to Nintendo over Sony's PSP, which is rumored to have games retailing for as much as $40. Currently, 124 games are in development by 45 third party developers, with 20 in development by Nintendo including Mario Kart, Warioware, Advance Wars, Animal Crossing, Zelda: the Four Swords, Final Fantasy III DS, FF: Crystal Chronicles, and a new Mario game.

Twelve games will be available at the launch of DS, which are:

Super Mario 64 DS
Spider-Man 2 - Activision
Rayman - Ubi soft
Madden NFL 2005 DS
Tiger Woods PGA Tour DS
Ridge Racer
Asphalt Urban GT
The Urbz
Mr. Driller
Ping Pals
Feel the Magic
Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt (Playable demo)

In addition, Pictochat is included into the DS hardware, which allows users to chat and send pictures to others wireless.

With Nintendo's marketing machine going all out, Sony has been comparatively reticent--although the PSP is also slated for a holiday release in Japan (2005 stateside), the company has yet to unveil a launch date or price point (or battery life).

"At the Tokyo Game Show all of the little women that were walking around with PSP units were having to go recharge the batteries every two hours," said Fils-Aime.

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