NEW YORK – It’s a Boy! Nintendo’s wildly anticipated Game Boy Advance handheld system is available now and can be everywhere you are this summer.
The new portable handheld was launched in June with 17 new titles designed specifically to demonstrate its breakthrough performance. More than 60 Game Boy Advance games will be available by this holiday season. Game Boy Advance launched in Japan on March 21, 2001, selling 1.6 million units in its first five weeks.
“Because of the strong game community we have built with our online customers, we get an early read on what gamers want, and we see strong demand for Game Boy Advance from fans of all ages,” says John Sullivan, vice president and general merchandise manager, Toysrus.com. “Subscriptions to our ‘Nintendo Delivers’ e-mail program jumped significantly when we began featuring Game Boy Advance pre-order opportunities, contests, exclusive code and news. We’re ready to deliver on one of the hottest items of the year.”
Game Boy Advance carries a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of US$99.95, while new game software retails for between $29.95 and $39.95. Nintendo projects shipments of 23 million units worldwide by March 31 of next year.
“Game Boy Advance sets a new standard in portable entertainment,” says Peter Main, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Nintendo of America Inc. “In fact, we expect it to expand on our dominance in this category with sales of up to 1 million units in the first three weeks.”
About Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance decisively breaks the existing boundaries for handheld video gameplay, boosting screen size by 50 percent. Game Boy Advance actually delivers a sharper picture than current 32-bit and 64-bit consoles playing on a 27-inch television. Game Boy Advance displays more than 500 times as many on-screen colors and is several dozen times as powerful as Game Boy Color. The system is backward compatible with existing Game Boy and Game Boy Color software.
With select multi-player software titles, four Game Boy Advance units can be linked together by optional cables offering four-way gameplay with all four players using a single game cartridge. In addition, the unit itself is capable of being used as a discrete controller for the upcoming NINTENDO GAMECUBE console.
Other titles debuting today with the system include: Army Men® Advance (3DO), Pinobee: Wings of Adventure (Activision), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (Activision), Super Dodge Ball Advance (Atlus), Fire Pro Wrestling (BAM!), Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Konami), Konami Krazy Racers (Konami), Earthworm Jim (Majesco), Iridion 3-D (Majesco), Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure (Majesco), Ready 2 Rumble® Boxing: Round 2 (Midway), Namco Museum (Namco), ChuChu Rocket! TM (Sega), GT Advance Championship Racing (THQ) and Rayman Advance (Ubi Soft).
Game Boy Advance is available in three colors: Arctic (white), Glacier (translucent blue), and Indigo (violet). A fourth color, Fuchsia, will be available on June 25, 2001.
