Nintendo Japan issues an apology to frantic, unfulfilled DS seekers.

There has been no shortage of DS sales news over the past week...impressive figures have poured in from all over the world on a daily basis. The Dual-Screen has sold well in the US, its sold well in Europe, and it apparently has sold exceedingly well in Japan. As of today, the DS can be considered simply "SOLD OUT" in Japan.

The situation is such that Nintendo of Japan felt compelled to post a public apology lamenting that their system is proving so hard to come by for so many. Chris Kohler of Wired's Game|Life was nice enough to provide a (rather hammy) translation:

We heartily thank those who bestow their patronage on our humble company.

Over the New Year season, demand for our portable game system "Nintendo DS" has vastly exceeded our predictions. It has gone out of stock, which we know has caused a great deal of trouble to our honored customers and retailers. For this we apologize from our hearts.

We will begin to ship our product by air mail, as this will help it get to retailers a bit faster. We are shipping product every week, but as supplies will not be fully replenished until the end of January, we humbly supplicate ourselves before you and beg your favor.

(Fun Fact: The above is actually a fairly literal translation, but comes across differently to the Japanese for whom such liberal modesty is an ordinary part of expression.)

So again, the DS is SOLD OUT in Japan, but weekly product shipments are likely to remain on schedule with a considerable boost to supply coming by the end of the month.

The weeks sales totals (which will likely have to come next week as Media-Create may be off for the holidays) will certainly reflect this shortage during New Year's week, considered Japan's peak shopping period. Rumblings however have hinted that software sales across the board for Nintendo's titles were massive, with numerous games selling in the six figures (on top of six-figure debuts for Brain Training 2 and Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time.)

R-E will be reporting on any further developments in these crazy times, so stay tuned.