DATEL DOMINATES U.S. MARKET

August 21, 2003: Less than a year after dropping its U.S. distributor and setting up a new office in Florida, Datel has already established itself as the nation's most successful supplier of videogame cheat products.

Outselling GameShark-branded products by a ratio of five to one, Datel's Action Replay brand is now a clear global leader.

Datel's cheat products generated sales revenue of $2.2 million in July alone, two-and-a-half times the amount Mad Catz earned from its GameShark branded products over the same period. In addition, over 100,000 Datel cheat products were sold at U.S. retail compared to a little over 20,000 GameShark-branded products.

NPD sales data for July 2003 reveals that four out of the five top-selling cheat products for that month belonged to Datel, with particularly strong sales of the company's cheat devices for PlayStation2 and Game Boy Advance.

Furthermore, Datel dominates the Top 20 with 12 products, while each of its main competitors - Mad Catz and Pelican Accessories - could only manage one solitary product each. Nintendo's e-card products take up the other 6 slots.

In a further setback for GameShark, the brand acquired by Mad Catz earlier this year for $5 million, sales of its new "V3" PlayStation2 product have dropped considerably since its launch. Despite gaining a head start over its Datel rival, Mad Catz only sold 20,741 units in July compared to PS2 Action Replay's 19,647 units.

With Datel's new PlayStation2 product Action Replay MAX promising broadband code updates, a brand new game-style interface and a host of other new features, the company looks set to consolidate its position at the top. MAX launches on September 1, 2003.