Yahoo Covers DS Shortages!

It seems like everywhere you turn, you cannot avoid a news article that is directed towards Nintendo. TV, Internet and just about everywhere you turn, some avenue of media seems to be covering Nintendo.

Yahoo, the immensely popular search engine, is the newest form of media covering everyone's favorite video game company. Below is the full article for your reading pleasure. In the article, they discuss the shortages of the Nintendo DS and how popular the handheld has become. Enjoy.

Tried to find a Nintendo DS recently? One minute they're sitting happily on the shelves of every megalomart in the country, and the next they're nowhere to be found. In some areas they're even scarcer than Nintendo's big holiday seller, the Wii.

In fact, retail tracker site iTrackr, which records availability of 20 or so high-demand products, currently rates the DS between 4 percent and 14 percent availability, depending on the color -- comparable to the Wii at 7 percent. The big online retailers sell out within minutes, and some haven't had stock at all for over a week. Hardly what you'd expect for a device that's been on the market for over two years, is it?

Contrast that with the just-released PlayStation 3, which -- contrary to all our expectations -- is starting the New Year with far higher availability than in previous months. Online, consoles are readily available with and sometimes without bundles, and they're turning up in plentiful supply at the usual chain stores. In other words, it looks like the PS3 drought might be already over.

But in spite of the higher profile consoles, the DS has been outselling absolutely everything else for months. Back in November -- the most recent month for which US sales figures are available -- almost a million DSs made their way home with eager purchasers, easily making it the biggest selling console that month. It does well back home in Japan, too: it shifted nearly half a million DSs in the week of December 18-24, more than three times the sales of its closest rival, Sony's PSP.

Will it ever stop? Game ON.