Gamecube Sales Jump 20% After Zelda Launch

Prior to its launch on March 24, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker set a Nintendo record with more than 600,000 copies pre-sold to consumers, and the company reports that the 1.1 million units of the game initially allocated for North America are selling rapidly. Perhaps even better for Nintendo in the long run is that sales of the GameCube have increased 20 percent during the same period. In the handheld market, Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire for the Game Boy Advance have hit the top of sales charts since their launch on March 17, with over 4.4 million copies shipped in Japan, and over 2.2 million units shipped to North America. The company reports that 800,000 Game Boy Advance SP units have shipped to North American retailers. In Europe, the company reports selling over 200,000 GBA SP units, or 50 percent of its inventory. Nevertheless, fears that the company is losing critical marketshare to Microsoft in the console market have driven Nintendo's stock down to 9,640 yen ($80.32) -- off 17 percent since the start of the year.