Wow...this is just...wow.

[A Black Falcon]

First...

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/031202/25455_1.html

It says that the comic comes from NOA. :)

Article about all three companies' sales.

http://www.forbes.com/business/newswire/...67096.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas for the video game industry with sales of game players appearing solid during the recent Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.

"According to our retail checks, total video game hardware units ... sold well during the Thanksgiving weekend, driven by the bundles offered by many retailers and strong (Game Boy Advance) and GameCube sales," Banc of America Securities analyst Gary Cooper said in a research note Tuesday.

Major game console makers Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co. Ltd. also touted the sales success of their game players at the start of the Christmas shopping season, the most crucial time of the year for the games industry.

Nintendo said it sold more than 500,000 units of its GameCube console during Thanksgiving week, roughly twice what it sold in the entire month of October.

"We're tracking to sell more systems in the last eight weeks of the year than we did in the previous 10 months combined," George Harrison, senior vice president of marketing for Nintendo of America, said in a statement.

The GameCube has struggled for market share since its Nov. 2001 release, though a price cut to $99 from $149 in late September ignited sales and put Nintendo back on track with the product, its fourth major console.

Sony, whose PlayStation 2 console dominates the international market, said the PS2 sold more than 1 million units in November, with sales of its $199 online-enabled Combo Pack doubling from October. Sony also said sales of its own games doubled from October as well.

Banc of America's Cooper, however, was less enthusiastic over sales of Sony's PS2. "We believe that PS2 hardware remained weak due to the lack of a hardware price cut before the holiday season and the lack of a 'killer app' software title," he said.

Microsoft said year-over-year hardware sales for its second-place Xbox were up 7 percent during Thanksgiving week.

"We think we're still pretty much on plan to make our numbers for the year," Aaron Greenberg, a business manager for Xbox at Microsoft, told Reuters.

Greenberg also said Microsoft had seen a 435 percent rise in week-over-week sales of "Halo," the best-selling Xbox game ever, after Microsoft cut the title's price to $29.99 from $49.99.

Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service

Sony's full press release

http://ve3d.ign.com

Coming off of the busiest shopping days of the year, Sony Computer Entertainment America released today initial sales results, setting the tone for the remainder of the year and confirming consumers' voracious demand for interactive entertainment. Sales of PlayStation products surged during the first couple of holiday shopping weeks with retailers nationwide selling more than one million PlayStation 2 computer entertainment systems in the month of November, growing the already massive PlayStation 2 installed base to more than 22.5 million and further validating the company's successful reach into the mass market. Sales of first party software also realized significant success with retailers.

Consumers in the days following Thanksgiving purchased the PlayStation family of products for those on their holiday lists more than any other gaming entertainment hardware and software. Gift-givers in droves checked off the new gamers on their shopping lists as they wrapped up the PlayStation 2 Combo Pack (includes the PlayStation 2 console, Network Adaptor (Ethernet/modem) (for PlayStation 2), and a copy of the online-enabled game,

Holiday sales of software titles are also skyrocketing, with overall sales of first party software in November double that of the same time period one month prior, a 90 percent increase in sales versus the same period one year ago. Driven by the recent first party triple 'A' releases, including SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs, Jak II, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, and EyeToy, Sony Computer Entertainment America's new catalog offerings accounted for more than 800,000 units alone during November. Overall first party PlayStation 2 sales volume for the month, which includes front-line software and "Greatest Hits" titles, achieved the two million-unit mark.

Gift-givers also stocked-up on established hits to expand the libraries of new and existing PlayStation 2 gamers on their lists. Sales of "Greatest Hits" titles soared, as new gamers began to establish their library of games with some of the most popular titles ever developed for the platform. And for less than $20, diehard fans couldn't resist scooping up "Greatest Hits" titles to fill the missing links in their existing libraries. The "Greatest Hits" series realized a 42 percent increase in sales year-over-year for the month of November.