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Edmoton Journal wrote:

Nintendo scores a Christmas hit
GameBoy still leading pack in sales of hand-held games
Virtual-pet game Nintendogs has proven to be a hit with young male and female game players.

Marke Andrews, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, December 19, 2005

VANCOUVER -- British Columbia-based Nintendo Canada is enjoying strong Christmas sales of both hardware and software, despite the launch of the sophisticated Microsoft Xbox 360 console in late November.

"It's looking like an incredibly successful Christmas, especially for Nintendo DS," says Pierre Trepanier, marketing director of Nintendo of Canada, who said 55 per cent of the firm's sales are made over the Christmas shopping season.

Trepanier says Nintendo hasn't really felt the effects of the Xbox 360 launch.

"They are completely different markets," says Trepanier.

"When you're spending a thousand bucks for a new system, you're in a very different segment than people buying GameBoy. You can get a GameBoy and game for $100."

Trepanier's figures are somewhat exaggerated. Microsoft released the Xbox 360 on Nov. 22, selling the premium model for $499 and the core model for $399. The less-expensive core model requires a 20-gigabyte hard drive, which sells for $130. Microsoft projects sales of 2.75 million to three million consoles by late February.

By comparison, both the GameBoy and the GameCube console, which is not a portable, sell in the $100 range. The GameBoy Micro, launched in September, sells for $129 and the Nintendo DS goes for $169.

Since launching the GameBoy player in 1989, Nintendo has been head of the hand-held pack, withstanding challenges from a score of portable players, including Nokia's N-Gage. The biggest challenge has come from the Sony PlayStation Portable, launched in Japan last December and in North America in March.

In sales of hand-held games units in Canada, PSP is third to GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS, a dual-screen player Nintendo launched in November 2004 and has sold 8.8 million units worldwide in 12 months. From October 2004 to September 2005, GameBoy Advance's sales in Canada were 427,780, Nintendo DS sold 119,069 and PlayStation Portable sold 109,224.

GameBoy, in its various forms, has sold more than 67.6 million units worldwide to date. GameBoy software sales exceed 280 million games sold.

Trepanier says the relatively low cost of Nintendo players and the variety of games available for all units, explains why they sell so well.

"The library of games for GameBoy is up over 800 games," says Trepanier, who claims Nintendo has "90 to 95 per cent" of the portable market.

Nintendo has had great success with the virtual-pet game Nintendogs, which is popular with girls as well as the traditional male games player. Many consumers who bought Nintendogs also bought portable machines to play them on, meaning they were just getting into video games.

"Games like that have the potential to expand the gaming population and Nintendo has always focused on expanding the gaming population," Trepanier says.

w00t.  I guess Nintendogs is more popular then we would have thought.