Nintendo To Continue Supporting Nintendo DS, At Least In Europe

At a recent Nintendo financial results presentation, company president, Satoru Iwata, once again touched upon the topic of the effect of piracy in Europe on Nintendo DS software sales.

Piracy, Iwata concedes, is part of the problem.

But he also believes that the decline in software sales is the result of Nintendo’s inability to produce a piece of hit software whose success could be compared to that of Brain Age and Nintendogs. Iwata went on to state that while Nintendo are launching the 3DS next year, they will continue to take advantage of the current DS installed base.

"Already in next year, we will launch Nintendo 3DS, but for the existing Nintendo DS family of devices, while we’ll intensify the legal and technical countermeasures against the likes of [piracy devices] MagiCom, we’d like to change the situation by creating hit titles by leveraging, upon the already existing huge installed base of the hardware," Iwata stated to investors.

Art Academy, he went on to reveal, launched with higher than expected sales, which led to shortages in several regions. Meanwhile, Professor Layton and the Unwound Future has been selling in line with previous games in the series.

Hmm…Level 5 still have one last unlocalized Professor Layton DS game, Professor Layton and the Specter’s Flute, which is the start of a series of prequels that take place before the events of Professor Layton and the Curious Village.