IT'S A HAND-HELD HOLIDAY AS SHOPPERS SNAP UP 500,000 NINTENDO DS UNITS
Game Boy Advance and Nintendo GameCube Also Post Big Numbers
REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 1, 2004 - Shoppers spent Thanksgiving week stuffing their shopping bags with Nintendo hardware, setting the stage for 2004 to be the year of the hand-held holidays. Shoppers snapped up more than 500,000 Nintendo DS systems during Thanksgiving week, representing more than 90 percent of all units available in stores across the United States.
With Nintendo DS sales moving faster than anticipated, some locations have reported sellouts, and Nintendo predicts the initial North American supply will be depleted within days. As additional shipments are rushed to stores by this weekend to meet the demand, Nintendo expects to sell 1 million Nintendo DS units in North America alone by the end of 2004 - a mark that took Apple's iPod 19 months to achieve.
"Consumers have voted the Nintendo DS as the hot item this holiday, so if you see one, you'd better buy it," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "Nintendo owns the hand-held market, and once again we're the hit of the holiday season."
Nintendo's other hand-held system, Game Boy® Advance, also soared during the holiday weekend. Nintendo sold more than 800,000 Game Boy Advance and Game Boy® Advance SP units during the past week. The combined 1.3 million Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance units sold last week set a new one-week sales record for hand-held systems. And the Game Boy Advance line remains on track to be the best-selling hardware line of the year.
Nintendo GameCube also posted impressive numbers. The special bundle of a Nintendo GameCube and a Mario Kart®: Double Dash!! game has sold more than 250,000 units since its introduction in mid-November.
Nintendo DS is revolutionizing video games by providing players completely new ways to interact with their games. The sharp, angular, silver-and-black dual-screened system comes with a stylus and features a touch screen, voice control and wireless communication. Nintendo DS, available now at an MSRP of $149.99, represents a third, distinct product line for Nintendo, along with Game Boy Advance SP and Nintendo GameCube. Nintendo DS comes packaged with both a free, embedded PictoChat communication program, and a playable demo of Metroid® Prime Hunters with both single-player and multiplayer modes.
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 and portable video game systems. Each year, hundreds of all-new titles for the best-selling Game Boy® Advance SP, Nintendo DS and Nintendo GameCube systems extend Nintendo's vast game library and continue the tradition of delivering a rich, diverse mix of quality video games for players of all ages. Since the release of its first home video game system in 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 1.9 billion video games and more than 170 million hardware units globally, creating enduring industry icons such as Mario and Donkey Kong® and launching popular culture franchise phenomena such as Metroid®, Zelda and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere.
For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at
www.nintendo.com.
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