GameCube to equal the amount of N64 in 3 years?

http://www.gaming-age.com/cgi-bin/news/news2.pl?y=2001&m=6&nid=5-19.db


"In a new research report recently released, the Investment firm of Merrill Lynch has raised their rating on Nintendo from Accumulate to Buy. The reason for the upgrade is a more favorable outlook for the GAMECUBE as well as a positive outlook for the Game Boy Advance.

Based on these favorable developments, Merrill has raised its expectations of GAMECUBE shipments. Previously, they had expected a bearish 1 million units to be sold in Nintendo’s fiscal year ending March 2002, with half in the US and half in Japan. However, ML says that Nintendo has indicated to them that US distributors have already requested 4 million machines, which is equal to Nintendo’s shipment volume forecast. For the next fiscal year, shipments are expected to reach 10.3 million units, 2.5M in Japan, 5M in the US, and 2.8M in Europe). This strong outlook is due to robust demand in the US and Japan, the start of sales in Europe, and the expansion of volumes on the production of the Flipper chip to 1M a month from 600,000 a month. Cumulative shipments are expected to reach 34.8 million by the fiscal year ending March 2005, with about 25% for Japan and the rest overseas. "

Didn\'t the N64 sell 35 million units over 5 years?

That sounds a little small to me. The PS2 has already reached a third of that number in its first year, and the PSX sold more that twice that estimate in only five years. Nintendo\'s going to have to do much better than that if it wants a chance at dominance...

If they take the same road they did with n64, gamecube will proably end up being  n64 2.  Which is a bad thing imo.  Gamecube seems to have better 3rd party support so thats a start.

You guys gotta remember something.last generation the Saturn was gasping for air when N64 came out. The killer apps were there, but no one was buying them. N64 came along and wowed many of us with Rogue Squadron and Mario 64. Then many of realized the slow trickle of games N64 had, so we went back to our PSXs.

This generation has 3 major players with one going out of the game.

People don\'t have time or money to buy all three in mass quantities. Since PS2 is already out and X-Box looks to be an alternative to ultra expensive PC gaming, they will take away many sales. Gamecube will still get plenty, but I am pretty sure it will have to be evenly spread out by the three with PS2 at the top for at least a couple of years. At least. Nintendo MUST strut every stuff in their body to come out on top in this generation, which I feel is very unlikely.


Eric Jacob

For the next fiscal year, shipments are expected to reach 10.3 million units, 2.5M in Japan, 5M in the US, and 2.8M in Europe).

i find it interesting that they expect higher sales in both the US and Europe than in Japan in the first year