Nintendo unveils new game console

larger   A Japanese seven-year-old boy looks at a Nintendo GameCube.

MAKUHARI, Japan (Reuters) -- Nintendo Co. on Thursday became the last of Japan's big game machine makers to enter the competitive market for next-generation consoles by revealing it would start selling Gamecube in Japan next July.

The company also unveiled its new 32-bit hand-held Gameboy Advance, which analysts said would maintain Nintendo's dominance in that market but which will hit the market later than they and software makers had expected.

Both machines will be Internet-capable and Nintendo said it will sell an adapter to link the original Gameboy and Gameboy Advance with mobile phones, enabling Japan's 60 million cell phone subscribers to exchange e-mail and play games online.

In the first month, Nintendo aims to ship one million units of Gameboy Advance, which is a similar size to the original eight-bit version but with a 50 percent bigger screen, and will release 10 games when it launches.

Nintendo will also market a new version of its blockbuster Pocket Monsters, or Pokemon, software for use on mobile networks in December.

"The specifications and game concept of the two players look to be quite solid, which will likely strengthen Nintendo's competitiveness," said UBS Warburg analyst Masahiro Ono.

	GALLERY

Gamecube will use an IBM Corp. microprocessor and compete with Sony Corp's bulkier PlayStation2, which was released on March 4, and Sega Enterprises Ltd's Dreamcast, which hit Japanese stores late last year.

And its arrival should mark the start of a full-blown battle in the market with U.S. software powerhouse Microsoft Corp. joining the fray late next year with its X-box console.

Gameboy will hit Japanese stores next March 21 and go on sale overseas in July. The Gamecube console will be launched at home in July with a U.S. debut three months later.

With Gameboy Advance, Nintendo hopes to build on the 90 percent share of the hand-held market it enjoys in Japan and 99 percent in the United States and Europe, due partly to its hugely popular Pokemon game.

But consumers are not the only ones who will be eagerly awaiting its appearance on stores' shelves

"The delay of Gameboy Advance is regretable since we have been working hard to develop games for a Christmas launch," said Kazumi Kitaue, managing director at Konami, Japan's major game software developer.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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