GBA SP Sales Continue to Soar in Europe
Game Boy Advance (GBA) SP sales have soared in Europe after the recent price cut to Pounds 69.99 ($130.78 at $1=Pounds 0.579), Nintendo Europe said Fri. The company said it saw an increase of more than 200% in the first 2 weeks of sales after the first price cut on the front-lit SP system. Nintendo Europe Senior Dir.-European Mktg. Jim Merrick called it “a record sales uplift for the handheld console.” He added that the system’s European installed base was now almost 5 million.
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An update on U.S. GBA SP sales wasn’t provided by our deadline. Nintendo Europe reduced the system’s price after Nintendo of America (NOA) dropped the SP’s price for the first time -- by $20 to $79.99 -- in early Sept. (CED Sept 2 p8).
Nintendo U.K. said late last month that SP sales jumped more than 150% over the first weekend after the price cut, with “some retailers” seeing sales soar more than 400% (CED Sept 30 p4).
Meanwhile, GBA software sales also continued to see a strong sales jump after the price cut, Nintendo Europe said Fri. Although Pokemon’s popularity had waned over the past couple of years, Nintendo said there continued to be life left in the franchise on the game front. As evidence, the company said that after only 2 days on sale, 250,000 units of Pokemon FireRed and Pokemon LeafGreen games were sold. Merrick attributed much of the strong games sales to the inclusion of a Wireless Adaptor and new game play features. Nintendo said last month that overall GBA software sales saw a “significant boost” with a 36% increase over the first weekend after the price cut.
As the holiday season neared, Nintendo said it will be shipping more highly anticipated games this year, including The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. In addition, several 3rd-party GBA titles are expected to ship in time for the holiday season, including The Incredibles from THQ.
Nintendo also said it planned to add an SP Limited Pink Edition on Oct. 29 in the U.K. to its current lineup of black, arctic blue, flame red, blue, silver, Limited Tribal Edition and Classic NES Edition. It wasn’t clear at our deadline if NOA planned to ship the pink version in the U.S. as well.
Meanwhile, industry experts speculated that rival Sony Computer Entertainment’s first handheld game system - - the PSP -- won’t ship on time despite repeated claims to the contrary from Sony. As an example, published reports from Tokyo late last week said Izumi Kawanishi, head of the company’s network systems division, expressed some doubt about whether PSP would ship this year in Japan as planned. Although it’s possible the company will be able to ship the system in time, he said the larger issue was whether game publishers would be able to have any games to ship for the launch. He also said PSP will be able to download and play MP3 files, and Sony planned to update PSP firmware in the future as it did with its PSX hybrid game system/DVD recorder. Sony might ship the system in different colors other than the black unit it’s shown, the reports said. Sony said PSP will ship in the first calendar quarter of 2005, before the end of its fiscal year in March.