Nintendo of America (NOA) told an analyst briefing in N.Y.C. late...

will be packaged with the Sept. releases of the games Pokemon Fire Red and Pokemon Leaf Green in the U.S. NOA said “more than 2 million copies” of those titles, including the adapter, were sold in Japan since they shipped at the end of Jan. The company said Mario Golf: Advance Tour, to ship for GBA June 28, will also make use of the adapter, which will be sold separately. NOA also noted that GBA Video cartridges -- each containing 2 cartoons that can be played on the handheld game systems -- will start shipping in June. Of the upcoming Classic Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Series games slated to ship June 7 for GBA in the U.S. (CED March 30 p9), NOA said sales have been strong in Japan. It said “more than 900,000 of these classic games sold in 4 weeks” there. It said other upcoming GBA titles in the U.S. include Mario vs. Donkey Kong (May 24), Hamtaro 4 (July), F-Zero 2 (Sept.) and Mario Pinball, Donkey Kong Country 2, Mario Tennis, a new Kirby game and a handheld Mario Party title (4th quarter). Upcoming GameCube titles, meanwhile, include WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$ (April 5), Custom Robo (May 10), The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (June 7), Pikmin 2 (Aug.), Donkey Konga (Sept.) and Paper Mario 2, Geist, Metroid Prime 2, Star Fox 2, Mario Tennis and Mario Party 6 (Q4). The company also plans to ship a higher-capacity 1019 Memory Card for GameCube later this year. Separately, NOA’s parent company revised its preliminary financial estimates late last week in Japan. Nintendo said it now expected to report that full fiscal year consolidated sales and operating profits will “increase marginally over the previous year.” But it warned that there will be “a substantial drop in net profits due mainly to paper losses stemming from adverse currency exchange rates.” For the year ended March 31, it said about ?68 billion “was absorbed as foreign exchange loss due in large part to the currency translation of assets held in U.S. and European accounts” (about $6 billion at of the end of the fiscal year). Nintendo said it now expected to post ?33 billion profit for the year vs. the ?54 billion estimate it had made in Jan. But the company said it still expected ?510 billion sales. The results would compare to the ?67.27 billion profit on ?504.13 billion in sales that it reported for the year ended March 31, 2003. Nintendo said that “although full fiscal year details and forecasts for the following year won’t be released until late May,” it “does foresee projected increases for both sales and operating profits for the year beginning April 1, 2004.”