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On May 21, Nintendo announced it would cut in the suggested retail
price of GameCube in Japan by ¥5,200 ($41) to ¥19,800 ($157). The
price cut, which took effect on June 3rd, appears to have paid off
significantly for Nintendo according to the latest numbers from
Media Create. Unfortunately, on the software side, not a single
GameCube game made the list of top ten games by sell-through this
week.
Nintendo sold through 18,700 GameCubes in Japan this week, an
impressive increase over the 5,400 sold just a week before.
Meanwhile, GameCube's lower price point made a noticeable impact on
sales of PS2, which fell from 60,000 to 49,800, and XBOX, which fell
from 5,800 to 3,800 in the same period.
Sales of GameCube this week may however not indicate a long-term
trend. It's very possible this week's jump in sales were only a
temporary result of two weeks depressed demand as Japanese gamers
waited for the price cut to take effect. We'll have to wait for next
week's data for any indication of the price cut's long-term impact.
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Sony's PlayStation 2
holds a commanding lead for the year in Japan with 1.81 million
systems sold. Nintendo's Game Boy Advance has held strong with 1.25m
systems sold. GameCube is well behind with just .58m sold but should
close this year's sales gap with PlayStation 2 in Q4. The poorly
performing Xbox meanwhile remains at a stagnant .2m for the
year.
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Console |
Week |
Year |
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1 Sony
PlayStation 2 |
49,800 |
1,815,200 |
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2
Nintendo Game Boy Advance |
29,500 |
1,253,500 |
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3
Nintendo GameCube |
18,700 |
587,400 |
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4
Sony PlayStation |
4,500 |
127,300 |
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5
Microsoft Xbox |
3,800 |
203,300 |
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6
Bandai WonderSwan Color |
2,000 |
87,400 |
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7
Nintendo Game Boy Color |
1,500 |
54,200 |
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8
Sega Dreamcast |
160 |
16,400 |
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9
Nintendo N64 |
100 |
4,600 |
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10
BANDAI WonderSwan |
80 |
4,300 |
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June
12, 2001 |
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Rick - Editor in
Chief, GameCubicle |
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