GBA SP ships two million in Europe

Nokia may be keeping schtum about early N-Gage sales figures, but Nintendo is coming out to bat this morning with news that the Game Boy Advance SP has shipped more than two million units in Europe in its first six months on sale - bringing the platform's total installed base to a whopping nine million units.

Although the figure doesn't represent actual sales (and Nintendo of all people must be well aware of this distinction, having ceased GameCube production due to saturated retail channels), it's still a massive boost for the platform holder, which has been racked with negative publicity in light of its downgraded financial projections. With Flame Red and Arctic Blue units prepped for launch on October 24th, and a slew of big Christmas titles on the way (including Mario Advance 4 and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance), Nintendo will be hoping for a bumper festive season too.

Meanwhile, Nokia has stated that it hopes to sell between six and nine million N-Gages in 2004. If Nokia can achieve that then it stands a good chance of threatening Nintendo's majority share at some point in the future (and no doubt weakening them for the shock of whatever Ken Kutaragi's PlayStation Portable has in store), but given the difference in unit pricing (the GBA SP retails for between 129 and 139 Euro; the N-Gage costs nearly three times that), software libraries (the GBA has many hundreds of games; the N-Gage has around 10), unit quality and marketing, at this stage we doubt they'll get there...