500K out the door. You do the math. You think Nintendo's happy about this? You bet your Yoshi underoos! Here's the official press release...

Redmond, WA (June 18, 2001) - The best selling video game platform in history is selling better than ever. Nintendo's Game Boy® Advance sold through half a million units during its first week on the market, making it America's fastest selling game system ever.

Nintendo of America Inc. announced today that the portable Game Boy Advance is a virtual sellout across the country, with 500,000 systems sold through to consumers since its launch June 11. But shortages should be temporary, as Nintendo shipped more than 100,000 additional units over the weekend, with total shipments on track to reach more than 1 million by the end of June.

"We knew demand was going to be strong - but this is a record-setting response," says Peter Main, executive vice president, sales and marketing, Nintendo of America. "The good news is that we are able to ship approximately another 500,000 units by end of June with further product to become available through July and August."

No video game system in history has exploded so quickly at retail. Nintendo's last new hardware launch occurred in 1996 for the Nintendo® 64 and set an all-time industry record by selling through almost half a million units in four weeks. By achieving half a million sales in a single week, Game Boy Advance is clearly the fastest selling U.S. video game system ever.

Game Boy Advance decisively breaks the existing boundaries for handheld video gameplay, boosting screen size by 50 percent. Game Boy Advance actually delivers a sharper picture than current 32-bit and 64-bit consoles playing on a 27-inch television. Game Boy Advance displays more than 500 times as many on-screen colors and is several dozen times as powerful as Game Boy Color. The system is backward compatible with existing Game Boy and Game Boy Color software.