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

[Great Rumbler]

After rocketing up the charts the past several weeks, the Nintendo GameCube has now officially reached No. 1 -- it's America's top-selling home video game console, according to direct sales data from the nation's leading retailers.

What Nintendo hoped for has happened! Nintendo GameCube sold more than half a million systems to consumers during Thanksgiving week, easily surpassing its console competitors. Among all game devices, it trailed only Nintendo's portable Game Boy Advance, which sold almost 600,000 units to U.S. buyers during the week.

"All along, our business plan for this year was to maximize consumer interest and sales during the fourth quarter," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "But frankly, we're overwhelmed by how successful we've been. Our price cut of Nintendo GameCube has ignited sales to the degree that it may turn out to be the best-selling console for the entire month of November. We're tracking to sell more systems in the last eight weeks of the year than we did in the previous 10 months combined."

Cube-Europe

[A Black Falcon]

Wow! Amazing... all that TV advertising they've been doing in the past month and the price drop has really paid off, it seems... see what it can get you, Nintendo?

[OB1]

Incredible indeed! And check out the great comic Nintendo made to celebrate this acheivement. They must be so giddy right now:

[Great Rumbler]

Hahahaha!!

[OB1]

I can just see a bunch of Nintendo execs driving by Microsoft's and Sony's gaming studios, mooning them and giggling all the way.

[The Former DMiller]

I don't think Nintendo made that comic. That would be overly arrogant of them. It was included with the Business Wire release this morning, but it didn't say where it came from. Usually I take that to mean Business Wire produced it.

[OB1]

Aww, that sucks. Nintendo deserves to be arrogant!

[Dark Jaguar]

No ones deserves to be arrogant.

[OB1]

[Dark Jaguar]

[OB1]

You don't think Nintendo deserves to be arrogant for a little while after having had to listen to stupid Sony and MS gloat for the past several years??

And before you say "they're better than that!", try to think back to Nintendo before the PSX days. They've been humbled for far too long! Let them gloat while they can, damnit! STOP TRYING TO STEAL THEIR HAPPINESS!!!!!!

[A Black Falcon]

Argh! GET RID OF THAT AWFUL SIG! OB1, it stretches every single one of your posts and is a MAJOR pain... (No, DJ's doesn't do that).

And OB1, if you hate so much of what Nintendo is doing now should you be happy that they are successful right now without changing much of the things you dislike? :)

Seriously, I love the fact that they are succeeding... but still, I'm afraid that it'll give Nintendo some of the wrong signals and they won't learn much. Still, they must have learned one thing from this that is good: "marketing" that is "decently done" is a good idea. And that's a good start.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, that thing is annoying, and more than that, it's also too tall. Could ya ditch it? It's completely up to you.

[A Black Falcon]

Actually, DJ, if you read OB1's sig, you'd see that it's only there because of how annoyed he is with having to read that stupid Garfield strip for the millionth time... get rid of it! :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Um, it's only there because he decided to put it up there. I'm not taking the fall for another human being's free will. That's what criminals do, blame others for their own choices...

[Great Rumbler]

it stretches every single one of your posts

Only if your screen resolution is 800x600. *zing!*

[A Black Falcon]

DJ, his point is that your sig is quite annoying too... and he's right...

[OB1]

I'm sick and tired of that stupid Garfield sig of DJ's. It wasn't funny the first time, let alone the thousandth!

[EdenMaster]

:topic:

That's probably the first and only time someone will use that smiley :).

W00T for Nintendo! Allow me to perform my impersonation of Sony and Microsoft upon hearing this news:

(This is now my interpretation of those events)

<font size="10">OH, FUCK.</font>

Thank you.

[Great Rumbler]

OB1, since you're now linking from an attachement instead of from Penny Arcades's website, I have to load that picture EVERY SINGLE TIME I GO TO A THREAD THAT YOU POST IN!! EVERYTIME!! Get rid of it or go back to the way you had it before!!

[OB1]

Haha, poor 56k'er.

I'll remove it as soon as DJ removes her stupid sig!

[A Black Falcon]

Who cares? It's not that bad... much better now, actually. And do you have to wait for EVERY image in a thread for it to appear in your browser or something?

And EM... uh, is that saying that you think this is bad? I don't get it.

[OB1]

Alright, is this better, Johnny? Another unfunny Garfield comic to assault your eyes every time you read one of my posts! Just like DJ!

[Weltall]

Originally posted by EdenMaster
:topic:

That's probably the first and only time someone will use that smiley :).

W00T for Nintendo! Allow me to perform my impersonation of Sony and Microsoft upon hearing this news:

(This is now my interpretation of those events)

<font size="10">OH, FUCK.</font>

Thank you.

Then Nintendo considers what would happen if the PS2 dropped it's price to match the GameCube. A similar statement comes to mind.

:D

[OB1]

Heh, that is true.

And I hope they drop the PS2 price soon because I don't think mine is going to last much longer. Stupid Sony and their POS hardware...

[A Black Falcon]

And you think they'll make the PSP good given their abysmal hardware record?

Anyway... yeah, if the PS2 dropped in price Nintendo would be in trouble. However, I don't see any signs of that this year... I mean, since the holiday season's biggest sales are in the beginning, if Sony wanted to drop it for Christmas wouldn't they have done it last week?

So we can resume being happy for Nintendo's success.

[OB1]

Well they always get great exclusive games, so their crappy hardware can be overlooked.

[A Black Falcon]

You mean 'must', not 'can'.

[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.

[OB1]

It says that the comic comes from NOA.

Haha, YES!! Now that's the Nintendo I love!

And take this, Derek! :shakeit:

:p

[The Former DMiller]

I stand corrected. I'm surprised Business Wire didn't source that comic, but it's nice to see Nintendo really rubbing it in when they finally get the chance to.

[A Black Falcon]

Nintendo brags about selling 600,000 Cubes in Thanksgiving week, Sony about selling a million PS2s in the month of November... but Nintendo's is definitely the better accomplishment when you look at their comparitive sales figures. Good for Nintendo... Sony is still doing okay, but it seems that MS is a loser in this episode of the console wars. :)

[Weltall]

I think Sony deserves commendation for selling a million PS2s in a month when practically everyone in the world already has one... or perhaps it's the replacement sales that people claim. I dunno. All I do know is mine's still chuggin.

[Great Rumbler]

My PS2 has problems reading the blue discs, but otherwise it works okay.

[Dark Jaguar]

So you're having trouble reading CDs but not DVDs? I can see that. Hmm, that sucks...

[Great Rumbler]

PSX games work just fine though, only the blue disc PS2 games don't work. Fortunately, not many PS2 games come on those.

[OB1]

Yeah, I have problems reading blue discs as well.

[The Former DMiller]

I think Maximo is a blue disc game and I haven't had any problems with it. Then again I don't put my PS2 through many extensive workouts so it should be in tip-top shape.

[OB1]

I use my PS2 less often than I use my X-Box and GC.

[The Former DMiller]

*Goes to check if Maximo works*

Whew. It is a blue disc game, but everything is a-ok. It bothers me that Sony is a huge name in electronics and yet they seem to make consoles that are pretty fragile. My PS1 lasted just long enough to get out of warranty. I just hope my new Sony computer monitor lasts as long as my old Apple monitor did. I would've bought from Apple again, but I don't have a spare $1500 lying around.

[A Black Falcon]

Uh, so Sony deserves to be commended for selling fewer systems that expected or hoped for?

[Dark Jaguar]

I've never had a problem with fragile goods from Sony myself. My PS1 still works perfectly, as does my PS2. In fact, my PS2 is the only system I have that hasn't had a disk read error. My GCN was replaced a while back due to some internal error causing disk read problems (though the one they replaced it with has yet to have a single problem) and I had to do the same with my XBox after a certain point (again, not a single problem after replacement). I think all 3 companies released botchy systems at first, but later fixed them. The Dreamcast had the same issue... I got my PS2 AFTER the first remodel, so that would explain why mine hasn't screwed up yet. As for why more PS2 owners complain of faulty systems, well, there are more PS2 owners period.

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, every console has its bad systems... I have a bad N64 for instance... but Sony from everything I've heard has a far higher frequency of bad systems.

[Great Rumbler]

All of my consoles work pretty good [except my PS2 has trouble reading blue discs], even my retro systems work marginally well.

[Laser Link]

Think one of the biggest reasons for the GameCube sales is the Zelda package. I have 4 friends who bought GameCubes last week, or are planning to soon, just for the Zelda game. Of course, they also loaded up on all the other big games, like Mario Kart and Metroid Prime.

And the additional $50 price drop Walmart recently had could have helped...

[OB1]

You mean the one day-only $20 price drop?

[Dark Jaguar]

That Zelda collection was a cool idea. I imagine Nintendo will do a similar thing in the future. One last thing. I think Nintendo, even Japan Nintendo (which never did this before) should include a game WITH the next system AT LAUNCH. NOA hasn't done this in a long time, and NOJ hasn't done this.... and that's the end of the sentence.

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, that's something they should do, and it would definitely help their sales.

[Dark Jaguar]

Hey GR, "falls for"? I've never really been able to think of an alternate solution than just doing as they ask. I mean, the choices are "don't do this and she will CERTAINLY die" or "do this and MAYBE they'll actually release her, or at least it could force them into a moment of weakness where the prisoner can be freed". Logically the latter is always the better choice. Honestly, is there a 3rd option?

[A Black Falcon]

Yes, a game at launch would be awesome... that died with the CD-based consoles, and it'd be great to see it back. :)