Nintendo of Canada says it plans to boost initial shipments of its Gamecube home video game console to 75,000 systems despite rumours that hardware problems could delay the launch.
"Our industry has learned the dangers of arriving at a launch party without enough gifts," Peter MacDougall, president of Nintendo of Canada, said in a statement. "By increasing our day one shipments to 75,000, we not only should come close to meeting total demand at launch, but also assure a virtually uninterrupted restocking through the holiday season."
The company said the Canadian retail release date will be Nov. 18th, and it plans to ship 1.1 million units in North America by Dec. 31. The Gamecube's expected retail price at the time of the launch is $299.95, the company said.
At a press conference on Thursday, Nintendo Co. Ltd. executive vice-president Atsushi Asada said the company plans to ship 500,000 of its new GameCube video game consoles at the Japan launch on Sept. 14 and repeated Nintendo's aim of four million units shipped worldwide by March 31.
Nintendo also said it would delay the U.S. debut of its GameCube console by two weeks to ensure a smooth rollout, matching the Canadian release date. The delay in the U.S. launch to Nov. 18 from Nov. 5 means the new console will appear in stores after the rival Xbox, due on Nov. 8 from Microsoft Corp. But Nintendo executives emphasized that the GameCube would still be available in time for the Christmas shopping season.
The delay would have no negative impact on sales and was simply to prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November, said George Harrison, senior vice-president for Nintendo of America Inc.'s marketing and corporate communications.
"We looked at the available quantity that we had, and we felt that it's more important to have sufficient quantity for Thanksgiving weekend and we thought that was a better day to go on sale," he said in an interview.
"As long as the company can ship four million units by end-March, we don't worry," said Eiji Maeda, senior analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research.
"GameCube's game line-up is wide-ranging and fun enough to attract more gamers than its current Nintendo 64 consoles did," he said, adding that he expected Nintendo's share in the home video game machine market to rise by 5- to 10-per-cent by 2004.
The Gamecube will initially be available in two console colours, Indigo and Jet Black. As of the launch date, consumers in Canada will also be able to buy additional controllers in four colours: Indigo, Indigo/transparent, Jet Black, and Spice (orange); as well as memory cards; Nintendo Power Player Guides, and other accessories.
At a news conference in advance of the Nintendo Space World video game exhibition, Nintendo also announced that five exclusive games and 12 independent third-party games are scheduled for the Canadian launch this year. The scheduled exclusive title releases, each with a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $69.95, are:
- Luigi's Mansion (Nov. 18)
- Wave Race: Blue Storm (Nov. 18)
- Pikmin (Nov. 19)
- Super Smash Bros. Melee (December 3)
- Eternal Darkness (Dec. 3)
In a move aimed at winning the hearts of game players, Nintendo plans to introduce next year its popular Pocket Monster, or Pokemon, games for the GameCube as well as for its handheld game player Game Boy Advance, Hiroshi Imanishi, a director at Nintendo, said on Thursday.
Besides the game titles, Nintendo also unveiled new forms of connectivity between its Gamecube and Game Boy Advance platforms. By linking the two systems, the Game Boy Advance can be used as a controller, to transfer a character trained on a Gamecube console to Game Boy Advance to continue game play while away from home, or to transport characters and game items via Game Boy Advance to trade with friends. Nintendo expects to introduce the first Gamecube title to take advantage of the Game Boy Advance connectivity later this year in Japan and in 2002 for North America, it said.
Mr. Imanishi said the company would draw up a plan by the year's end for an increase in production of the GameCube. Monthly output of the GameCube is currently 600,000 units. "We would like to raise monthly production to 1-million units as soon as possible," he said.
The Nintendo group will spend ¥55-billion ($456.6-million U.S.) on advertising, including promotion for the GameCube in the year to next March, said Mr. Imanishi.
Nintendo's Mr. Harrison said the U.S. unit alone would spend $75-million on GameCube advertisements by the end of this year.
With files from Reuters News Service