Demand for DS 1seg TV tuner floods Japan

The Nintendo DS 1seg TV tuner in Japan caused quite a ruckus over demand. Online order placement for the DS/DSLite attachment were opened a few weeks back without any announcement whatsoever, but still, traffic flooded in.

Meanwhile, a recent survey conducted reveals that only 18% of the DS population want the TV tuner… But considering the sheer size of the DS population itself, the “only 18%” goes a loooong way indeed!

The Nintendo DS 1seg TV tuner in Japan caused quite a ruckus over demand. Orders for the DS/DSLite attachment were opened a few weeks back without any announcement whatsoever. A public relations representative for Nintendo explained that:

As it was television (not game), we intended to begin accepting the orders quietly without prior announcement. We had not expected so many accesses would be made.

True enough, the website which started accepting orders as early as November 8 was bombarded by Internet traffic, so much so that it became too difficult to place order even up until the next day.

As J-Cast News also reports, the latest issue of Famitsu reports a survey conducted about whether or not they would buy the DS 1seg TV tuner or not. The results were published, and about 60% answered that they wouldn’t buy it because they “would not want to enjoy anything [that’s] not a game on a game machine.”

22% of the replies came back as “undecided,” while the remaining 18% claim that they would indeed purchase the TV tuner. J-Cast News notes that though an 18% slice of the DS market is pretty small, one still has to consider the actual size of the DS market. In Japan, there have been over 20 million DS handhelds sold, and if you take 18% of that, you’re left with 4 million users wanting a T V tuner. That’s still a lot!