According to Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, the Game Boy Advance saw monthly shipments of 2.3 million units when the handheld was in its prime. The GBA has sold roughly 80 million units since its introduction nearly 6 years ago. In comparison, Nintendo DS production has recently been increased to 2.5 million units shipping each month. The red hot handheld has sold over 40 million systems in just over 2 years since its November 2004 launch.

On to Metroid Prime 3, those worried about the lack of a well-controlled first-person game for the Wii should be able to calm down a little bit. Iwata says, “Metroid Prime is not out yet, so this is just the opinion of testers, but it’s being rated close to the keyboard and mouse control that’s the standard for PC games.”

As for the possibility of Nintendo properties showing up on cell phones (aside from the Super Mario Bros. ringtone I know many of you have), or even on any other platform other than their own game systems, Nintendo had this to say: “By offering software to other companies, we could probably do good in terms of short term sales, but we’d lose Nintendo’s strong point.” Of course, Iwata acknowledged that the market may suddenly change in the future, so Nintendo is going to stay prepared, as always, and consider other possibilities behind the scenes.

AMN

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