GAME BOY ADVANCE SP INTRODUCED IN U.S.
U.S. retailers heralded introduction of front-lit Game Boy Advance (GBA) SP handheld device with front-page ads in Sun. ad circulars. Although no major retailers appeared to be offering SP at price below $99 SRP announced by Nintendo of America (NOA), Circuit City (CC) advertised one free GBA game with purchase of SP hardware from choice of two 3rd-party offerings -- Activision’s The Invincible Iron Man and Midway’s Defender. However, it was unclear at our deadline whether CC was offering GBA games free as part of deal with Activision and Midway in which it received titles at reduced price, or merely was trying to unload titles that might have been in oversupply. CC and 2 publishers hadn’t commented Mon.
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Also unclear was how many SP hardware units had sold through in U.S. since system became available Sun. and whether NOA had indeed shipped more than 800,000 systems for U.S. rollout and was on track to ship one million in first 30 days of availability as NOA Mktg. Vp George Harrison had told us was planned (CED March 3 p3).
Only retail chain that returned call for comment on SP launch was Best Buy (BB), whose spokeswoman told Consumer Electronics Daily: “According to my buyers, we have been very pleased with the launch.” But she said there were no specific numbers available from BB and data were “very preliminary… We do have some stores that have product on the shelves and we will be receiving additional goods within a week or so.”
As part of Nintendo one-two punch, company introduced eagerly awaited GameCube title The Legend of Zelda -- The Wind Waker in U.S. Mon. Title is first of its popular Zelda series to ship for GameCube and company is hoping it will help further boost sales of its next-generation console. After falling into 3rd place behind Xbox, GameCube sales received boost in Feb. after NOA introduced hardware/software bundle allowing consumers to pick one free game from choice of 4 (CED March 19 p4). Sellthrough data for game weren’t available from NOA, but it recently said there were 600,000 preorders for title.
Separately, Vancouver-based Nam Tai Electronics said Mon. it had received orders from “a Japanese manufacturer for more than 1 million units of front light panels, which will be incorporated into the handheld videogaming devices of a prominent Japanese videogame developer.” Nam Tai didn’t cite Nintendo by name but it was obvious that was precisely company it was referring to because GBA SP is only handheld game machine on market we're aware of that features front light panel. Nam Tai said it “has already commenced production and delivery of these front light panels.” Nam Tai Chmn. Tadao Murakami said: “With our continued diversification of our product mix and expansion of our services for OEM customers, we believe we are strengthening our competitive position within this fast-moving electronic manufacturing industry.” Company said it also supplied its front light panels for cellphones and digital cameras. Nam Tai also said it changed date of its annual shareholders meeting to July 8 in N.Y.C. from June 10.