Nokia’s success claims hammered by Nintendo

400,000 sales claim raises eyebrows.

Posted by Staff
Nokia’s success claims hammered by Nintendo
Nokia has finally been forced into naming the launch figure for its N-Gage phone/games console hybrid.

Speaking this morning, the Finnish cellular telecommunications giant broke its silence. “We've sold around 400,000 N-Gage in the first two weeks," stated Ilkka Raiskinen, senior vice president entertainment and media at Nokia Mobile Phones. "Sales have been very good in Europe and Asia Pacific."

Now, think about this: N-Gage saw one of the biggest marketing spends seen in either the mobile phone or games industry. It has a retail presence that far outstrips that offered to any other videogame player.

And now read this: In the first four days on sale in Japan only, the GBA shifted around half a million units. 200,000 SPs were sold in two days in Europe alone.

At the end of the company’s last financial year - April 2003 - Nintendo had managed to entice 2.1 million gamers into buying an SP, essentially an upgrade to a system they probably had in the first place.

So is N-Gage selling well? Compared to the 3DO, yes. Compared to the GBA, no, not at all.
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