Nintendo has a lot of money, have sold a lot of GBAs, and has a lot of GameCube inventory. One of these is not good for the company.
In a quarterly financial statement, Nintendo is reporting that it has made a profit of ¥11.5 billion ($95 million) in the April-May-June period, almost all in part to the skyrocketing sales of the Game Boy Advance. Oddly enough, this is the first time that Nintendo has disclosed its quarterly earnings report, normally waiting until the end of the year before revealing any of its financials.
In this three month span, 3.24 million GBAs and GBA SPs were sold worldwide. That's all well and good, but in comparison to the 80,000 GameCubes sold in the same period, it's causing Nintendo's investors to worry. The company is sticking to its goal of six million systems sold before the end of March 2004, but many feel that if Nintendo can't get rid of its excessive inventory of systems before Christmas, it won't get rid of them.
Analysts believe that a GameCube price drop is in Nintendo's near future if it hopes to reach its target of six million. Still, Nintendo does hold a small margin over the Xbox in worldwide sales, with 9.6 million GCs and 9.4 million Xboxes sold worldwide.