http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp..._gamecube_dc_1

Nintendo: GameCube Sales Quadrupled in Past Week
Thu Oct 2, 4:01 PM ET Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo!



SEATTLE (Reuters) - Sales of Nintendo (news - web sites). Co. Ltd.'s GameCube video game machine quadrupled in the first week after it slashed the U.S. price of the console of $99, the U.S. arm of the Japanese video game company, said on Thursday.

Nintendo, which cut the price of the GameCube on Sept. 24, said it sold 61,000 consoles during the week following the price cut, up from weekly average sales of 15,000 during August and September.


"I think it will be sustained (until the Holiday season)," George Harrison, Nintendo of America senior vice president of marketing, told Reuters.


Nintendo said in a statement that more than 100 new titles will be available before the end of the year.


Nintendo's price cut made the GameCube $80 cheaper than its two competitors, Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news) (news - web sites).'s market-leading PlayStation 2 (news - web sites) and Microsoft Corp.'s second-place Xbox (news - web sites), both of which start at $179.

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It's way too early to say if this surge will last through the holidays.

I thought I had read somewhere that the X-Box had higher sell through rates (software title sales per console) than the Gamecube did.

Isn't that the real figure that console makers are after.

More market share can obviously help a console maker sell more games in total, but assuming console makers are losing money on each console (which we are not sure of in the case of Nintendo), the software sell through rate becomes even more important for making a profit.

Personally I'd like to see the industry stay competitive and continue the price competition. Hopefully all 3 console makers can stay in it and manage to make a profit.

Microsoft hasn't and will not make a dime in profit this generation no matter what the software titles sales per console is. Microsoft is all about gaining marketshare this generation.

I believe that is the case. Now you can get a Gamecube and 3 games for the price of an Xbox though.

That's what we've all heard over and over, but how does Microsoft allowing an $80 price gap between the XBox and GameCube fit into this strategy? If all they're trying to do is gain market share, without regard to profitability, it makes sense that they'd be the first to drop the price.

It has been stated a few times that Microsoft doesn't consider itself to be in competition with Nintendo, only Sony, so I suppose they don't care what Nintendo does for the most part, but if Sony dropped the Ps2 in price then Microsoft would follow suit.

There's no way that, as the stores close on Christmas Eve, that the shelves will still have a $179 Xbox and $179 PS2 sitting next to a $99 Gamecube.

Except for the new Nintendo owners who already have an Xbox, each Gamecube sale is one lost potential Xbox buyer... we're not talking early adopters almost irrationally rabid about videogames now. They just bought one console; they're not buying another.

MS is going to just let people flock to Gamecube, without a fight, on THE single most critical factor for the next, most important 12 weeks of the year? I don't think so.

At some point, they're going to have to forget about sitting back and matching a Sony price drop. They're going to have to be the ones to do it.

If enough weeks go by, the decision to not follow Nintendo's lead will supplant Xbox's initial European price as Microsoft's dumbest as a hardware provider.

Yep, but not by much.

Source

The next set of figures on today's release regards attach rates - the amount of games owned per person, per console, averaged:

Gamcube: 5.7
Xbox 5.8
PS2 7.1

Great job for Nintendo, I'm happy to hear they're doing better

Looks like Im exactly average. I have 5 gamecube games plus Super Mario Sunshine.

LOL!!!

You know, I already have a Gamecube (Purchased the first week it came out). My policy ever since I was given my ColecoVision back in the day was to own two of every console I purchase. As a backup in the years to come and to show my kids 20 years from now.

That being said, I jumped on the WalMart Platinum bundle deal with the GBA Player and I was surprised to see The Zelda Ocarina of Time Disc and the Viewtiful Joe/Splinter Cell/Billy Hatcher/Sonic Demo packaged as well! I definately feel like Nintendo is really giving the consumers an incredible deal and being a long time supporter I wanted to help out. Even with that said I still want a Black GameCube and the Ellusive Panasonic Q.

2 GameCubes, 1 GBA, 1 GBA Player, 34 Gamecube games. Am I average?

No.

Yes it is. It's the law of transitive properties.
You don't think they'd just take any arbitrary day and use that as a basis for their increase in sales would you? They can just take the lowest sales day and say "sales have jumped 9,746% since the price drop".

damn, losing 4x as much money on consoles AND throwing $50 mil down the tubes as well? yikes. must be nice to have money to waste.

j

That $99 price point seems to be the entry point to appeal to the masses. What's strange is the Cube was really at $99 for awhile since they were giving away a free $50 game, but I guess its important to really have a $99 price tag.

BTW, Sony and MS can't let this go on for too long. Especially MS. They are neck and neck with Nintendo worldwide. I expect to see a $99 Xbox very soon.

Good job by Nintendo.

Nintendo's "Who Are You" campaign is supposed to run something like 5 minute trailers before movies like Matrix and Return of the King. I think we're in for some nostalgia-gone-hightech. If done right these trailers what Dr. Mario ordered.

I think that the reason why this is such a turn around is that it kinda breaks with tradition. Nintendo is actually caring about being aggressive and taking a more active role instead of just worrying about the games and thinking people would come to them.

While I did like that old strategy in some ways it really isn't good for business.

Definitely thinking about picking one up -- especially at this price. Still broke though, and there are a ton of xbox games I'm still planning on getting soon (Moto GP2, Splinter Cell, Hunter sequel, XIII, Freedom Fighters, etc) . Not enough time either. I need to find a job closer to where I live.

Sorry Aphex, but it is not the same. I work for a tech company and when we compare our business results, we compare them as: year to date vs. last year's year to date, month to date vs last year's month to date, and quarter to date vs last year's quarter to date. You cannot tell me these are the same. We also use month to month, week to week, and quarter to quarter within the same year too. The GC announcement doesn't say from when their sales have quadrupled. Compared to when???? To launch? To last week? To a month ago??

Anyway, I just read this so it doesn't look like all is rosy in Nintendo-land unfortunately.

Well, if you read that it actually is not that bad. No worse than a lot of companies in this very tight economy. They even went so far as to site speciffically problems and what they are doing to fix the problems. They are not exactly bleeding money like Sega was or anything.

I think this was a good move. It is nice to see Nintendo as the aggressor. GC is my favorite console most of the time. If I could cross breed it with my XBox and get a GC with a hard drive and a little more graphics umh I would a very happy man. I hope Nintendo takes steps on the next console to address the GC shortcomings (memory card system).

They will be making some money off me this Christmas. I am planning to get a bunch of games for both myself and presents. Plus, if they would announce that Dr Mario three game pak or whatever that is in Japan for the U.S. I would buy another GC for my mom. She is still stuck playing Dr. Mario on an old NES. May get a 64 with Dr. Mario 64 if they don't bring that game stateside soon.

To be honest I think sony needs to lower their prices before MS does. They're the most expensive console and they've been out a year longer, and it's not in a bundle.

But according to the numbers posted in the Nintendo loss thread, Sony sold 300,00 PS2s in August vs 150,000 Xboxes. Why should they lower the price?

Sony shouldn't. Like I said earlier in this thread, they will sell PS2s in droves on reputation alone (that huge game catalog isn't hurting either). Someone posted here that MS doesn't see itself in competition with Nintendo. I wonder if that's true, because that sounds like a very poor strategy. It would be amazing if anyone could surpass Sony in one console generation.

Sony will continue to sell PS2s through Xmas regardless of price. The race here is for 2nd place and has been since the PS2 launch. I can't imagine that MS will sit by while people buy $99 Gamecubes through Christmas. Sony on the other hand, can afford to as they will continue to sell more units regardless.