April 4^th, 2003 (12:00am) - With the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire, and of course, the Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo has made its way to the top of almost every sales chart in America.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the game which set a record for having more than 600,000 copies pre-sold before its release, has been flying off shelves with retailers quickly burning through the entire initial shipment of the title, which are 1.1 million copies. Because of this The Wind Waker has caused GameCube sales to jump nearly 20 percent. It seems that Zelda was what the GameCube needed all along.

Pokemon, on the other hand is just unstoppable. With the two new GBA games selling more than 4.4 million copies in Japan, combined, North American sales also debuted extremely well, with 2.2 million copies sold. The two games have dominated software sales charts since its release on March 17.

Finally, the Game Boy Advance SP, despite being, in essence, the same 32 bit handheld console we all know and love, has managed to sell approximately 800,000 units. It seems that the SP has been receiving a warm welcome in all gaming territories.

"While no one will know the champion of this season’s college basketball tournament until next week, the winner of this spring’s video game tournament is Nintendo," says Peter MacDougall, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Nintendo of America Inc. "Game Boy Advance SP, Zelda and Pokemon represent a three point play that players and retailers dream about."

"At what is traditionally a slow time of the year for video games, Nintendo has seized the sales initiative," says Richard Simone, video game buyer, Toys "R" Us. "With their blockbuster products Game Boy Advance SP, The Legend of Zelda and Pokemon, they’re a big part of why video games are one of the truly bright spots at retail."