Topic: Nintendo Releases Holiday Sales Figures

[Jonnyboy117]

The company announces GameCube hardware figures for the holiday 2003 sales season.  Plus: Mario Kart races to the million mark.

Reported by Jonathan Metts

Source: Nintendo of America

Nintendo of America said today that GameCube was a huge success for Christmas 2003.  We spoke today with the company to get all the latest data.  According to information gathered from retailers and Nintendo’s projections based on November sales, the company says 1.1 million GameCube systems were sold in the U.S. in December alone, compared to about 900,000 for Microsoft’s Xbox console.  This figure represents a 70% increase over the GameCube’s sales in Dec. 2002.  Nintendo does not currently have weekly or daily figures for December, so the company cannot confirm or deny Microsoft's claim that the Xbox outsold GameCube in the last two weeks of the year.  However, NOA does acknowledge that GameCubes were in short supply over that period and that the two systems were likely in closer competition than when GameCube was readily available in November and early December.

Combined with the 750,000 systems sold in November, including about half a million just during Thanksgiving week, the installed base for GameCube has now reached 6.8 million in the U.S.  Sales of the console for calendar year 2003 were 35% higher than for 2002, making GameCube the only major console to increase in popularity from year to year.  NOA estimates that Xbox sales decreased by 4% and PS2 sales by 26% in 2003.

Nintendo also says that Mario Kart: Double Dash has reached the one million mark in only seven weeks on the shelves, making it the GameCube’s fastest-selling title yet.  This number represents only U.S. sales; the game has also sold over half a million copies in Japan, and we do not yet have the numbers for Europe.  

Official sales figures for December are expected from the NPD tracking group in the next few days.  We’ll follow up with that information as well, but Nintendo is confident in its estimates.

[mouse_clicker]

Translation: Nintendo kicked ass.

[nolimit19]

well it would have been nicer if the cube and out sold the xbox 4 to 1, but ill take this. wel i think there is no doubt who number 2 is world wide now.

[chlupe]

Anyone have any idea what the global unit sales are for this fiscal year? Just wondering how far they have to go to reach Iwata's 6 million mark. Also, any idea of what worldwide unit sales are to date?

[Hostile Creation]

Y'know, I actually prefer Kirby Air Ride to Mario Kart.  I mean, Mario Kart is an awesome game, but it's not as good as Air Ride, in my opinion.  Shame no one realizes that.

Good for Nintendo, though.

[Djunknown]

Hostile, sounds like you got a kick out of Air Ride; the American media was not too merciful with it, but if you like it, more power to you.  That's what it should be about anyway, as long as you're satisfied with your purchase.

Gotta say yay for Nintendo, but I notice that there's a hush by the 'analysts' (and I use that term very, very loosley) and rival fanboys.  Case in point : Yahoo News. The story where Ed Fries of Microsoft steps down, posts were saying 'Xbawx is still da r0xoR! PS2 n Cube da sux0r' and other drivel. But the story of Nintendo's success remains silent, as if not to acknowledge, even deny this happened..

Now if Crystal Chronicles and Metal Gear Soild:TTS can keep the momentum...

[gwgtrunks]

Iwata reached his 6 million goal just in the US .

"We're at 6.8 million GameCubes sold in the US life-to-date and we sold about 3.17 million of those this year." - Perrin Kaplan.

This is excelent news .

[Jdub03]

Hostile fcreature you love kirby its alright imo.  My 9 year old brother has it.  Its just a little too simple. It is very reminiscent of smash bros. dont you think(Please no "Hal made them both" comments. I KNOW).  Maybe thats why so many people like it.

[Bill Aurion]

"Simplicity is the peak of civilization."~~Jessie Sampter

The Mario Kart sales were expected, yet I'm still glad it did well...I can't wait to see what happens this year with titles like Pokemon Colisseum, Metal Gear, and Final Fantasy:CC coming out...

[Bartman3010]

But how many systems did the PS2 sell?

[Mario]

Exactly. Nintendo sneakily evaded that issue. Which is a good thing. I assume PS2 sold around 2.1 million.

[Bill Aurion]

Well you could find the numbers from last year and take 26% off if you're willing to do the work...

[Perfect Cell]

Who cares about PS2, they are number 1 and wont be taken off the pedestal. Plus Sony is thinking PSP right now...  GCN main rival is X-box and X-box only. They need to stay at nubmer 2 and use the momentum of this last quarter to keep kicking booty.  

[DarkSyphor]

The thing is that Nintendo is numder 1 because PS2 just stills ideas from nintendo like Jaks they stole it from Nintendo and XBOX they got into the Market because Microsoft needed more money and created the Box , but Nintendo has been in the market for about 20 years just guessing and the only enemy was sega but now sega united with Nintendo and now PlayStaion the thevies took Capcom and Square and gave them back to use and Microsoft just said the Rare that they will pay them more to work for them so now there gone but still Nintendo has been the long lasting system and people who got gameboys think that Playstation or XBOX is number one when really there play on the gameboy more hours that their system. but enogh of that as long as Nintendo is gaining there trusting companys like Capcom and square again there will be no hope for the other systems unless more companys come up.

VIVA NINTENDO THE NUMERO 1 SYSTEM  

[Bill Aurion]

..............

My friend, I hope that was all sarcasm, because none of that is true...

1.  Sony didn't steal the idea of Jak(which is a crappy game anyway, imo)
2.  Microsoft doesn't need the money...They just want more market share
3.  Capcom and Square left on their own during the last gen, because they wanted to work on the more flexible cd the PS was using...
4.  Ninty SOLD Rare to Microsoft...

[DarkSyphor]

   
Give me a shotgun i want to kill myself right now

[DarkSyphor]

 what i was saying a'nt sarcasm but i you cant always trust on info on the net but
playstation did steal Nintedo because you had Link to the guy and then the fairy to the whatever it is a mammal.
I am ashaed of myself
.......................  

[NWR_Lindy]

DarkSyphor has gotta be hammered when posts.

Yeah, who cares about PS2?  Their sales figures don't matter as far as GameCube is concerned.  But at the same time it's obvious that PS2 outsold them; if GC outsold PS2 they'd be crowing about it.  Since they didn't outsell PS2, they're hammering on Microsoft.  Nice positive spin there.  But, like I said, who cares.  XBox is Nintendo's direct competition and they're doing as well or better than them.

6.8 million in the U.S. - that's a pretty good number.  Anybody have any figures on what the N64 sold in the U.S. when all was said and done?

silks

[akdaman1]

So Iwatas 6 000 000 is only for Japan

[Bill Aurion]

Actually, I think it was 6 million for the fiscal year...(world-wide)

[DrZoidberg]

Quote
playstation did steal Nintedo because you had Link to the guy and then the fairy to the whatever it is a mammal.

ahahahha what's going on in this sentance

Quote
So Iwatas 6 000 000 is only for Japan

6 000 000 bananas? he must be damn good at super monkey ball, i demand a gathering of monkey ballers in Kyoto to challenge him.

oh and to Nintendo / Nintendo's PR rep, they are quite good at spinning positive numbers

[chlupe]

I'm assuming that Kaplan's statements referred to the fiscal year, so the 3.17 million units sold for the year puts them at over halfway to the 6 million mark... however that's 3.17 million units in the U.S. alone, so they're probably even closer to the goal.

That's good and all, and sales definitely make me confident that the system will be supported (i.e. I won't be left dry without games), but I'm reserving judgment from everything until Microsoft posts official numbers. Not that it matters, the absolute numbers are still great, but I know that *public* perception mostly only sees who's #1, #2, and #3, and the details end up not mattering as much as they should.

Btw DarkSyphor, buddy, sober up a l'il, eh?

[vudu]

what bill said.  six million units sold during the fiscal year (march 2003 to march 2004, i believe).  the 6.8 million units pertains to units sold in the usa during the gamecube's life-to-date, not this year alone.

EDIT:  whoops, i didn't see there was a second page to this thread.  i was replying to bill's post on the bottom of page one.  looks like chlupe already said most of what i was going to say.

[Ian Sane]

See how it works?  Nintendo is a passive pansy during Christmas 2002 and sales are so below expectations that market analysts start predicting Nintendo is going to drop out.  Nintendo is agressive during Christmas 2003, lowering the Cube price significantly, and the Cube is now number two.  Hopefully this will encourage Nintendo to be more agressive with their next console.  When they make a strong effort to compete they perform better.