GC Launch (review)
Nintendo Co. Ltd., which launched its GameCube video game console on Sunday in the United States, sold about $100-million (U.S.) of the next-generation machines and related merchandise on the first day, a Nintendo spokeswoman said on Monday. Nintendo of America spokeswoman Perrin Kaplan said the estimated number of new games bought together with each new console was somewhere between two and three. Games sell for $49.99 each. Nintendo shipped 700,000 units of the $199 console for the launch, but Mr. Kaplan could not say how many units were sold on the first day.
“It’s over what we think Microsoft’s allocation was,” she said, referring to Microsoft Corp.’s launch-day quantities of its new Xbox game console, which debuted on Thursday.
Microsoft’s $299 console is pitched to older gamers than Nintendo’s offering, whose appeal lies largely among children ages six to 14.
Nintendo’s claim for weekend GameCube sales put the game ahead of blockbuster movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which posted a record, three-day opening weekend box office of just over $90-million. “Harry Potter’s such a hot thing it’s just kind of nice to be up there with that,” Mr. Kaplan said.
Nintendo, which launched the GameCube in Japan in September, plans to ship around 100,000 units per week to U.S. retail stores, Mr. Kaplan said, through the end of the year. At that pace, the total shipments for the year would be about 1.2 million units, slightly ahead of Nintendo’s 1.1 million forecast.
The top-selling game for the console, Mr. Kaplan said, was “Luigi’s Mansion,” a Nintendo-publisher title, followed by Lucas Arts’ “Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2” and Nintendo’s “Wave Race: Blue Storm.”
For the first nine months of the year, Nintendo had five of the top-10 selling video games, according to statistics released by The NPD Group on Monday.
The GameCube and Xbox compete with Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 2, which was released in Nov. 2000 and which is expected to be the best-selling platform by a wide margin this holiday season. Konami Co. Ltd.’s “Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty,” the most anticipated PS2 game this year, was also released last week.
NPD predicted that among the three consoles, this year would be the best ever for the U.S. video game industry, surpassing 1999’s record $6.1-billion.