How many Nintendo 3DS handhelds got sold stateside after Triforce Johnson got one? Enough for Nintendo to boast. “U.S. day-one sales numbers for Nintendo 3DS were the highest of any Nintendo hand-held system in our history,” the company claimed today, adding that the volume of tech support calls it received was also “well below the rate experienced during past hardware launches,” and that there are no widespread issues with the handheld. That may sound a bit premature, considering Nintendo won’t provide actual sales figures until April 14th, but we’re willing to consider the possibility that the Virtual Boy’s legacy is done: perhaps this time, the only major headaches Nintendo’s handheld will create are for the likes of Sony and Microsoft.

Nintendo says 3DS sets day-one handheld sales record, doesn’t quantify it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to Gartner’s latest mobile sales numbers, the rise of Android hasn’t been quite as meteoric as you might think — even with 888.8 percent growth in 2010. Last month, Canalys quoted Android as the top earner for smartphone platforms in Q4 of last year, beating out Symbian for the top spot, but Gartner says it ain’t so. IDC supported this a few days ago saying that Symbian was still the smartphone OS “market leader. Gartner’s numbers do show Android overtaking Nokia’s Symbian devices in unit sales, but it points out that the OS’ use across a variety of brands actually “kept Symbian slightly ahead of Android.” Symbian ultimately outsold Android by more than 44 million units last year, but considering the little green robot’s astronomical growth in 2010, we’d say even super star is an understatement. Check out the PR after the jump to see how the rest of the competition stacks up.

Continue reading Gartner and IDC dispute Android’s dominance over Symbian in Q4 2010

Gartner and IDC dispute Android’s dominance over Symbian in Q4 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 05:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lot has been written on how the iPhone performs in Japan, the world’s most advanced mobile nation, but the general consensus in this country now is that it sells very well (even though both Apple and provider SoftBank Mobile refuse to break down Japan-specific sales numbers). It’s rumored that the number of iPhones sold in Japan has passed 3 million.

There are reasons for this success (super-low pricing, aggressive marketing, Apple’s pre-iPhone brand popularity in Japan, clever product positioning by SoftBank, etc. etc.), but we’re talking about a country in which basically every cell phone is a smartphone, a country where you’d be hard-pressed to find a handset without a digital TV tuner or e-wallet function, for example.

The appeal of the iPad, HP’s upcoming Slate, and other tablets will take a bite out of Netbook sales this year, according to a report released Monday by DisplaySearch.

Driven by the iPad, the tablet market will see dramatic gains this year, taking market share away from clamshell-style Netbooks, says DisplaySearch’s “Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report.”

Most of the growth, especially for the iPad, will come from North America and Western Europe, where Apple has set up key distribution lines and created agreements with content providers. Overall, consumers are expected to pick up around 5 million tablets this year, forecasts DisplaySearch.

But don’t count out the Netbook just yet. Traditional clamshell type Netbooks, or mininotes, are expected to continue to entice customers as their average selling prices have dropped from $400 to slightly less than $300. The Apple iPad, which will account for most tablet shipments this year, starts at a price of $499 and moves up to more than $800. The low prices of Netbooks will remain appealing to people looking for a second or third PC and help lure in first-time PC buyers in emerging markets.

Ironically, though, the low prices of Netbooks will continue to result in thinner margins and lower sales numbers for their manufacturers, component suppliers, and retailers, says DisplaySearch. …

Apple has just announced that it sold over 300,000 iPads in the US as of midnight Saturday, April 3, including deliveries of pre-ordered devices to customers, channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. For your reference, that’s 30,000 devices more than iPhones were purchased when they first went on sale.

Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded over one million apps from Apple’s App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day.

Steve Jobs in a statement said that the iPad is going to be a “game changer” (we’ll see) and added that on average, iPad owners downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their device.

The amount of iPads sold is a far cry from what analysts estimated (not unusual, but still): Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who had first – correctly – predicted that as many as 300,000 iPads would be sold this weekend, revised his numbers upward Saturday to between 600,000 and 700,000 units purchased on launch day.

Personally, I’d hold off on analyzing sales numbers until next month, when the first iPads with 3G go on sale, and also in other parts of the world, outside of the United States.

Be sure to check out our complete list of the best iPad apps at launch.

Last month, we reported that according to some rumors in the industry, Sony is seriously considering relaunching their portable gaming device, the PSP Go, with a price cut and marketing campaign.  And today, Tokyo-based research firm Media Create released [JP] the latest hardware sales numbers for Japan, one of the biggest video game markets in the world.

And these numbers indicate that sales-wise, the PSP Go is poised to go down as the biggest failure in recent video gaming history: According to Media Create, a mere 1,275 units were sold all over Japan between March 1 and 7. By way of comparison: The Nintendo DS Lite (not the DSi or the XL) found 4,316 buyers in the same time frame. The regular PSP (the best portable gaming device ever in my opinion), on the other hand, was the No. 1 console, selling 64,808 units in that week.

Sony was able to sell just 17,618 PSP GO [GER] in the ten weeks between December 28, 2009 and March 7, 2010 -  an almost unbelievably low number. Good for Sony that in the same time frame, 667,961 of the regular PSPs were sold, making that device the best-selling game system in Japan in 2010 (if you ignore the three-way split of the DS systems).

In Japan, the PSP Go currently goes for 26,800 Yen, a more than steep price when compared to the 16,800 to 19,800 Yen buyers have to pay for a PSP-300o or the 29,980 Yen a PS3 costs (10,000 Yen=$110).

It looks like the rumored price cuts, marketing campaigns and hardware changes don’t come out of nowhere.