Nintendo is still sticking to the 2000 release date. Hiroshi Imanishi spoke to Reuters today, and stated that Nintendo plans to launch world wide at the end of 2000. Can Nintendo pull this off? I would like to believe it. I want more proof. Talk is cheap.

OSAKA, Japan, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd , a major Japanese game console maker, said on Thursday it plans to launch its next-generation game machine Dolphin worldwide at the end of 2000.

Nintendo plans to launch ``Gameboy Advance,'' a successor to the existing Gameboy portable game machine, this summer in Japan, Hiroshi Imanishi, a director and general manager of Nintendo, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

The major game machine maker plans to introduce the Gameboy Advance in overseas markets after its launch in Japan.

Nintendo is expected to achieve its forecast earnings in the year to March, Imanishi said.

In November, Nintendo forecast parent current profit of 100 billion yen in 1999/00 against an actual 135.39 billion yen the previous year. Nintendo is unsure whether sales of its two newest Gameboy Pokemon games -- Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver -- will reach the planned eight million units by the end of March because of the impact of the September 21 earthquake in Taiwan, where the company produces Gameboy software, Imanishi said.

On November 24, Nintendo launched the long-awaited Pokemon Gold and Pokemon Silver software in Japan with a selling price of 3,800 yen.

Nintendo sold a combined total 5.20 million units of the software by the end of December, Imanishi said.

By 0533 GMT, Nintendo's shares were up 1,170 yen or 5.29 percent at 23,300 yen.