UK Game Boy Advance sales top 1 million in 2004

Nintendo has announced sales figures for its Game Boy Advance SP console in the UK last year, with strong performance over the Christmas period bringing full-year sales for the handheld platform to over a million units.

The GBA SP had its strongest Christmas ever at retail, capitalising on the supply difficulties which faced other platforms to become the best selling hardware format over the holiday period.

Combining the sales of the two revisions of the GBA hardware reveals that the platform now has an installed base of four million units in the UK alone - with 14 million units sold across the European territories in total.

"The handheld games industry continues to grow and grow, and these figures highlight that Nintendo is still the key player," commented Nintendo UK head of marketing Dawn Paine. "2004 has been a great year for the Game Boy Advance SP and for the Nintendo GameCube, we are extremely excited to watch another exciting year unfold."

The early months of this year will, of course, see the arrival of the Nintendo DS platform - which is backwards compatible with GBA titles - as well as the launch of several key titles for the platform such as Donkey Kong: King of Swing and Square Enix' first handheld outing for the Kingdom Hearts franchise.