New Game Boy
Advance Already a Sellout; Buyers Snap Up a
Record 500,000 Nintendo Game Boy Advance Systems
in a Week -- More on the Way!
The best selling
video game platform in history is selling better
than ever. Nintendo's Game Boy(R) Advance sold
through half a million units during its first
week on the market, making it America's fastest
selling game system ever.
Nintendo
of America Inc. announced today that the portable
Game Boy Advance is a virtual sellout across the
country, with 500,000 systems sold through to
consumers since its launch June 11. But shortages
should be temporary, as Nintendo shipped more
than 100,000 additional units over the weekend,
with total shipments on track to reach more than
1 million by the end of June.
"We
knew demand was going to be strong -- but this is
a record-setting response," says Peter Main,
executive vice president, sales and marketing,
Nintendo of America. "The good news is that
we are able to ship approximately another 500,000
units by end of June with further product to
become available through July and August."
No
video game system in history has exploded so
quickly at retail. Nintendo's last new hardware
launch occurred in 1996 for the Nintendo(R) 64
and set an all-time industry record by selling
through almost half a million units in four
weeks. By achieving half a million sales in a
single week, Game Boy Advance is clearly the
fastest selling U.S. video game system ever.
Game
Boy Advance decisively breaks the existing
boundaries for handheld video gameplay, boosting
screen size by 50 percent. Game Boy Advance
actually delivers a sharper picture than current
32-bit and 64-bit consoles playing on a 27-inch
television. Game Boy Advance displays more than
500 times as many on-screen colors and is several
dozen times as powerful as Game Boy Color. The
system is backward compatible with existing Game
Boy and Game Boy Color software.
As
the worldwide leader and innovator in the
creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo
Co. Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and
markets hardware and software for its popular
home video game systems. The systems include Game
Boy, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance and the
upcoming NINTENDO GAMECUBE(TM). Since the release
of its first home video game system in 1985,
Nintendo has sold more than 1.4 billion video
games worldwide, creating enduring industry icons
such as Mario and Donkey Kong and launching such
franchises as Zelda(TM) and Pokemon(R). As a
wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America
Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as
headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the
Western Hemisphere.
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