Nintendo announces GameCube figures

Last week Nintendo claimed to have sold approximately $100 million worth of GameCube hardware, software and accessories in the first few days of the console's launch in America. A week later and the Japanese gaming giant is finally quoting figures. Nintendo has stated that during its first week of availability in North America, over 500,000 GameCube consoles have been sold. CTW is quoting a figure of 565,000, presumably extrapolated. Luigi's Mansion is apparently the most popular of the console's early titles. About 100,000 units of the launch allocation have been spread over Canada and Latin America, with the remainder going to rental and similar channels. We know that Xbox launched with around 300,000 units, but Microsoft has not released official sales figures yet. That said, it's a good bet that most if not all of them went to pre-orders. With both Nintendo and Microsoft shipping top-ups to retailers at the rate of about 100,000 to 125,000 a week, Nintendo looks set to ship more in the run up to Christmas, assuming there is demand. Either way, it's a good time to be a gamer in the States, with so many consoles boasting high quality software line-ups. Related Feature - Conducting the battle