Quote:Nintendo stocks in Japan have gone up 3.7 percent on Friday and Deutsche Securities have raised the company’s rating from “hold” to “buy.” Other market analysts are sure to follow. It’s almost entirely in response to the healthy GameCube sales in the U.S. for the holiday season in which Nintendo had the top-selling software, Mario Kart, and top-selling system, GBA, in November. GCN sold 754,000 units in the month while close industry rival Microsoft sold 491,000 Xbox systems.
The GameCube's graphics chip maker, ATI, also reported that its quarterly revenue may be up about 40 percent from high sales of GCN and other technology it provides.
So... what now? (oh and I know no one here subscribes to the NY Times but their article is way longer and far more informative than CNN's short one...)
Quote:....Rockstar also annnounced it planned to have the next installment of the Grand Theft Auto franchise ready for reelase in the "fourth fiscal quarter of 2004". Rockstar also plans to release Manhunt for Xbox and the PC as well as an extension of the Grand Theft Auto franchise for the Game Boy Advance during fiscal 2004.
Awesome, now I just hope that they'll use one of those spiffy 3D engines for the game.
Q production stopped, probably permanantly. No reason given, but they say that the price hadn't changed since launch -- Q's still are $324, while the NGC has dropped to about $124... why they killed it instead of dropping the price I don't know, but they did.
Quote:TORONTO - Talk show host Conan O’Brien will bring his quirky brand of humor to Canada’s biggest city in February, a move local organizers hope will boost a tourism industry ravaged earlier this year by the SARS outbreak.
The comedian confirmed Monday his “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” will shoot from Feb. 10 to 13 in Toronto. The idea was partly initiated by Lorne Michaels, the Canadian-born producer of “Saturday Night Live”.
“I want to announce now that if this week goes well in Toronto we are moving the show permanently to Winnipeg,” O’Brien told a press conference in Toronto.
The comedian said it would be “premature and foolish” to say who would appear on the show, but he thought “Ben Affleck, J.Lo. guaranteed”, along with J.D. Salinger and Saddam Hussein.
Newly elected Mayor David Miller and other officials said they hope the exposure will help revive tourism, which slumped during the SARS outbreak that ran from mid-March until May. Toronto was the only city in North America where people died from the disease.
Unlike the many Hollywood-backed “runaway productions” attracted to the city by the weaker Canadian dollar, O’Brien said the show would highlight its locale.
“We’re not going to just try and replicate our show. There was an initial idea that maybe like everybody else we should shoot our show in Toronto, but say it’s New York,” he said.
O’Brien said the idea of coming to Toronto appealed to him because he had been heavily influenced by Canadian comedy, particularly the 1970s classic “SCTV”. The popular low budget television show helped launch the careers of Martin Short, John Candy, Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Quote:The Magic Box is reporting that both 4th Quarter TRSTS North American hardware sales and November software sales are out. While the GameCube came within striking distance of the PS2 on the quarter, it still has the smallest installed base of the current generation of systems.
Console Q4 Sales Install Base
Game Boy Advance (and SP) 1,724,000 17,633,000
Playstation 2 1,149,000 20,288,000
GameCube 1,008,000 5,702,000
Xbox 667,000 6,669,000
The top 25 software sales for November showed just how much that install base matters, as while Nintendo grabbed the top spot (with Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, which was only out for two weeks of the month), the only other GCN title to make the list was Mario Party 5 at 13.
Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Nintendo, GC)
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun (EA, PS2)
Final Fantasy X-2 (Square Enix, PS2)
Grand Theft Auto Double Pack (Take Two, XB)
SOCOM II: US Navy Seals (Sony, PS2)
Need for Speed: Underground (EA, PS2)
Tony Hawk Underground (Activision, PS2)
True Crime: Streets of L.A. (Activision, PS2)
Super Mario Advance 4 (Nintendo, GBA)
Madden NFL 2004 (EA, PS2)
WWE: Here comes Pain (THQ, PS2)
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (EA, PS2)
Mario Party 5 (Nintendo, GC)
True Crime: Streets of L.A. (Activision, XB)
Yu-Gi-Oh! Sacred Card (Konami, GBA)
Namco Museum (Namco, GBA)
NBA Live 2004 (EA, PS2)
Frogger's Adventure: Temple of the Frog (Konami, GBA)
Halo (Microsoft, XB)
Jak II (Sony, PS2)
Pac-Man Collection (Namco, GBA)
EyeToy: Play (Sony, PS2)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (Ubi Soft, XB)
Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga (Nintendo, GBA)
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (Sony, PS2)
(js)
Source: NPD Funworld / The Magic Box
Very impressive q4 sales for Nintendo, but they're still waaay behind Sony and still a million units behind Microsoft. If they can keep this up then they'll be able to catch up with MS in no time, but I don't know if they will since there are only a handful of big GC games coming out in the first half of next year, as per usual with Nintendo. *sigh*
