January 15^th, 2004 (12:00am) - Around the world and around the block, Nintendo has taken a leadership position in the video game industry. Hardware and software sales in 2003 made significant leaps over 2002, and Nintendo’s success bumped Microsoft’s Xbox to the No. 3 position in the 2003 console wars.

Global holiday sales for the GameCube in 2003 outpaced 2002 by a whopping 70 percent, and Nintendo does not plan to change its global sales target of 6 million Nintendo GameCube systems this fiscal year.

Nintendo estimates that for 2003, GameCube U.S. hardware sales increased by more than 35 percent over 2002; Sony’s PlayStation 2 dropped by about 25 percent and Xbox showed no relevant market growth. In December alone, GameCube hardware sales soared 69 percent over December 2002, compared to a drop of about 30 percent for PlayStation 2. Again, Xbox showed little change.

U.S. sales got a boost from a Sept. 25 price drop, which brought Nintendo GameCube to an MSRP of $99.99. Now Nintendo GameCube has nearly 6.8 million units sold in the U.S. since its 2001 launch. And Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has become the fastest-selling GameCube game in the United States, selling more than 1 million units in just seven weeks.

"With the price drop for Nintendo GameCube and strong games across the board, we expected to have a good holiday season, but these numbers surpassed even our best projections," explains George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance have become the engines powering the video game industry this year."

The hand-held Game Boy Advance also saw double-digit increases in the United States, with nearly 2.5 million units sold in December, an 11 percent increase over December 2002. Nintendo sold more than 8.2 million Game Boy Advance systems in 2003, an increase of 18 percent over 2002 and the most sold in one calendar year in the 14-year history of the Game Boy. In 2003, the Game Boy Advance outsold PlayStation 2 by nearly 2 million units.

Nintendo also led the way during the holiday season’s software boom. The 2003 sales for GameCube software increased 63 percent over 2002, while Xbox software increased 54 percent and PlayStation 2 software increased 23 percent. Nintendo expects to continue riding the wave of success through 2004, with a steady flow of strong software titles, including Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles in February, and Pokemon Colosseum in March.