Game Boy Advance may face delays

Along with the rest of the gaming world, we are counting the days, waiting for the release of Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. There is one thing that’s worrying us though. Over in the Land of the Rising Sun retailers are just about to clock up a massive 2.7 million pre-orders. This would be fine, apart from one thing: Nintendo’s original estimate for release day sales was a mere one million. This means that a PlayStation 2-style void will appear with very few units making it to store shelves on launch day.

Now this little crisis over in Japan doesn’t really affect us directly, but indirectly, it could have massive implications. It is likely that Nintendo will very much want to please its incredibly loyal Japanese user base. This could mean one of two things become more likely to happen. One is that the European launch date will be delayed until Japanese demand is met. The other is that the European launch date will remain unchanged and very few units will make across to us.

Now please understand, we are not in the business of peeing on the bonfire. We’re just trying to warn you that Game Boy Advance hardware and software may be hard to get hold of and a pre-order could prove well worth your while.