Nintendo financial report positive for 2003
by Jolex Del Pilar

Thursday, January 15, 2004

Hardware sales up 70% according to Nintendo.

Yesterday Nintendo claimed that hardware sales for it's Gamecube gaming system were up 70% during 2003, compared to 2002. Nintendo now claims that the strong showing late in the year pushed the GameCube into the number two spot hardware-wise for the 2003 calendar year, surpassing Microsoft's Xbox, but still trailing Sony's Playstation 2 in overall sales.

Nintendo estimates that U.S. hardware sales for 2003 show GameCube hardware sales up 35.0 percent in year-over-year results, while PlayStation 2 hardware sales dropped 25.0 percent and Xbox showed no relevant growth. Nintendo now claims to have sold a total of nearly 6.8 million GameCube units in the U.S. since its launch in 2001.

For December 2003, Nintendo claims GameCube hardware sales rose 69.0 percent over the same period in 2002, while PS2 sales dropped an estimated 25.0 percent and Xbox showed little change according to Nintendo.

In terms of its software, Nintendo claims that sales of GameCube software in 2003 grew 63.0 percent over 2002, beating out Xbox software sales (up 54.0 percent) and PS2 software sales (up 23.0 percent) in terms of percentage growth. Nintendo also informed us that Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has surpassed the one million sold mark in the U.S. after seven weeks on store shelves.

Nintendo also said it sold more than 8.2 million Game Boy Advance units in 2003, an 18.0 percent increase over 2002’s total. 2.5 million units were sold in December alone, an 11.0 percent increase from the previous year.

--- Jolex Del Pilar