Street Fighter 2 Creator Warns of DS Market Crash

May 2, 2008 4:54 PM

Capcom vet and Game Republic founder Yoshiki Okamoto says that the market for Nintendo's DS may be destined for a market crash similar to Atari in 1983.

Speaking on Nintendo's wildly popular Nintendo DS, Okamoto suggested that the system's rapid growth and glut of available software might indicate an impending doom for the market, particularly in North America.

"I think it's a fact that the market blew up more rapidly than even [Nintendo] thought it would," Okamoto told Gamasutra. "And the faster something expands, the easier it is for it to deflate again, right? I hope they come up with a way to avoid this with the DS. But for one thing, there are way too many titles out all at once."

"You've started hearing the phrase 'Atari crash' pretty frequently," he added. "People are talking about how the second 'Atari crash' is around the corner. And Nintendo is the one that has to figure out a way to stop it."

The infamous Atari crash in 1983 was prompted by a number of factors, including increased saturation of consoles and products on the market. The crash nearly destroyed the then-fledgling game industry.

Aaron Linde

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deathofrats

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May 2, 2008 5:19 PM

Glut of available software? I am curious to find out what types of games he plays on the DS. Because there are a ton of good games on the DS, they arn't all fighting or action oriented.
- Lukiopimp
  
   reply
  May 4, 2008 7:26 AM
  
  Looking at the success of Advance Wars series on the DS just proves that DS is nowhere near the point of Atari Crash.
- dantastic
  
   reply
  May 4, 2008 9:31 AM
  
  most of the games on DS are all shovelware though. there are some good games but like the wii, nintendo is out to lunch on quality control.
  
  i went and bought a 360 and a psp because i couldn't take it anymore
  - silverback1138
    
     reply
    May 5, 2008 2:53 AM
    
    Having all these platforms, the X360 definitely has the lion's share of quality titles, but the PSP? As much as I love the few gems on it, not only is it's library much smaller, but the quality software is also lower. There are reasons why the DS is steam rolling the PSP and every other major challenger so far. Considering how much people gawked at the idea initially.