NCL said today it would be increasing its GameCube shipments 13% for this fiscal year. Originally, the company had planned to ship four million units by March '02; now they will output an additional 520,000 systems for a grand total of 4,520,000 by March. Most of the boosted shipments will go to the North American market, due to very high demand. For some reason this won't allow for increased profits. Hrm. Here's the fresh squeezed goodness...

TOKYO, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd said on Monday it expects to raise shipments of its Game Cube video game console by 13 percent from the four million units initially forecast for the year to March, but does not plan to raise its earnings forecast.

ADVERTISEMENT

Nintendo, the world's second-largest home video game maker, said most of the 500,000 units to be added would be for North America, where its next-generation game consoles have sold out since their debut on November 18.

``It looks like we will be able to ship more to North America, where we have sold all of our planned 740,000 units already,'' a Nintendo spokesman said.

However, he said the company did not plan to revise its earnings forecast for 2001/02 despite the expected increase in exports and robust domestic sales expected in the New Year.

The company said last month it expected a group net profit of 80 billion yen, down 17 percent from the year before, on revenue of 580 billion yen, up 25 percent.

Nintendo's shares were up 1.11 percent at 22,850 yen by 0155 GMT, outperforming a 1.57 percent decline in the Nikkei average.

The Game Cube, priced at $199, is competing head-to-head in the U.S. Christmas season with Microsoft Corp's (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) Xbox game console, which also made a smashing debut last month.

Microsoft said earlier it had shipped 1.1 million units of its $299 video game console, with at least 300,000 more to be shipped by the end of this month.

Shortly after its U.S. launch, Nintendo raised its calendar year-end shipment target for North America by 200,000 units to 1.3 million.

Both products are jostling for second-place after the $299 Play Station 2, which Sony Corp released in November 2000.

Shares in Sony were down 1.95 percent by late morning trade, in line with other high-tech shares.