Nintendo of America Inc. currently claims the best selling console game, the best selling portable games, and the best selling hardware system in America.
Since coming to market within a week of each other in late March, The Legend of Zelda(R): The Wind Waker(TM) for Nintendo GameCube(TM), Pokemon(R) Ruby Version and Pokemon(R) Sapphire Version for Game Boy(R) Advance, and the new flip-top, front-lit Game Boy(R) Advance SP portable system have leaped to the top of their respective sales charts.
The new Zelda game set a Nintendo record with more than 600,000 copies pre-sold to consumers before its March 24 launch date, and retailers now are quickly burning through the entire initial North American shipment of 1.1 million games. In the same period, sales rates for Nintendo GameCube hardware have jumped 20 percent.
With more than 4.4 million copies of Pokemon already shipped in Japan, more than 2.2 million games have now moved through to North American retailers, showing conclusively Pokemon is back with an exclamation point. The companion Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire titles have dominated portable software since their launch on March 17.
Finally, 800,000 Game Boy Advance SP units have blown through to North American retail, matching equally raucous receptions in Japan and Europe.