December 02, 2004 - Nintendo has released solid shipment numbers for the first day of Nintendo DS sales in Japan, and the numbers seem to paint a solid early start for the system. According to the company, retailers took stock of 500,000 NDS systems on day one. This shipment number is 200,000 higher than the shipments Nintendo had originally planned.

Actual sales numbers for the system will have to wait until a later report. We saw no shortage of systems at retail and were able to walk into a retailer in the middle of the day and purchase a system and games without fuss. Many retailers had the system on display in special sales kiosks outside stores, giving the system good visibility.

There was apparently a bit more buzz from the first day of NDS sales than our original story may have suggested. Crowds exceeding 100 did indeed form at the main retail locations in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro areas for retail giants Yodobashi Camera and Bic Camera. Unfortunately, Shibuya (our place of choice for all launch coverage) didn't draw too much fanfare, leaving us with a lonely first chat session (being in Shibuya did get us onto Famitsu.com, though, which is real cool).

Nintendo recently revealed that, due to strong retailer demand, it has upped its worldwide NDS forecast from 4,000,000 units to 5,000,000 units shipped by the end of March, 2005. In Japan alone, Nintendo expects to have 1,000,000 systems in retailer hands by the end of the year, despite retailers having apparently asked the company for more than 2,000,000 units.