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.

Quote:Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has commented on the global sales of the GameCube saying that the target of six million units by March 2004 is within view. Nintendo's fiscal year ends on March 7th and will be the last day to tally GCN units over the past year. Iwata indicates that it won’t be easy to reach but it is fully possible.

Nintendo expected global demand for GameCube to pick up after the price cuts and thus stuck with the goal of six million units that it had previously set even though sales at that time had been slowing. From all the reports we’ve seen the price cuts have helped a lot.