With Nintendo DS sales moving faster than anticipated, some locations have reported sellouts, and Nintendo predicts the initial North American supply will be depleted within days. As additional shipments are rushed to stores by this weekend to meet the demand, Nintendo expects to sell 1 million Nintendo DS units in North America alone by the end of 2004 - a mark that took Apple's iPod 19 months to achieve.
"Consumers have voted the Nintendo DS as the hot item this holiday, so if you see one, you'd better buy it," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "Nintendo owns the hand-held market, and once again we're the hit of the holiday season."
Nintendo's other hand-held system, Game Boy® Advance, also soared during the holiday weekend. Nintendo sold more than 800,000 Game Boy Advance and Game Boy® Advance SP units during the past week. The combined 1.3 million Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance units sold last week set a new one-week sales record for hand-held systems. And the Game Boy Advance line remains on track to be the best-selling hardware line of the year.
Nintendo GameCubeTM also posted impressive numbers. The special bundle of a Nintendo GameCube and a Mario Kart®: Double Dash!!TM game has sold more than 250,000 units since its introduction in mid-November.
Nintendo DS is revolutionizing video games by providing players completely new ways to interact with their games. The sharp, angular, silver-and-black dual-screened system comes with a stylus and features a touch screen, voice control and wireless communication. Nintendo DS, available now at an MSRP of $149.99, represents a third, distinct product line for Nintendo, along with Game Boy Advance SP and Nintendo GameCube. Nintendo DS comes packaged with both a free, embedded PictoChatTM communication program, and a playable demo of Metroid® Prime Hunters with both single-player and multiplayer modes.