Exclusive Nintendo DS Systems Set Off Celebrity Bidding War At Sundance
Three Nintendo DS Units Raise $23,000 for Children's Hospital and Tsunami Relief
PARK CITY, Utah, Jan. 26, 2005 - Thanks to a celebrity bidding frenzy, Nintendo DSTM proved to be the talk of the Sundance Film Festival. One-of-a-kind Nintendo DS systems created specifically for the festival were won by comedian Jay Mohr, host of the Sundance Channel's Festival Dailies and the popular show Last Comic Standing, actress Poppy Montgomery, star of the thriller Between, and actor Alan Cumming, also of Festival Dailies and X2: X-Men United. The three won their new custom Nintendo DS units in a silent auction at the Nintendo DS Lounge at the Sundance Film Festival. Mohr, Montgomery and Cumming outbid celebrities like Anthony Anderson of Hustle & Flow, Lisa Kudrow, John Leguizamo, Jason Ritter and Jamie Bell.
Mohr bid a whopping $10,000 for a Nintendo DS with a swirling blue metallic pattern. Nintendo will add $5,000 to his winning bid for a total donation of $15,000 to Mohr's designated charity, St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Montgomery bid $2,500 for a stylish green Nintendo DS with gold graffiti patterns, while Cumming bid $1,500 for a wild copper-and-brown one. Nintendo will match both their bids, and will donate $8,000 to their chosen charitable cause, tsunami disaster relief.
"Nintendo DS is already a hot system, but the one-of-a-kind DS units really created a bidding frenzy among the celebrities," says Perrin Kaplan, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing & corporate affairs. "And best of all, along with Nintendo's contributions, two very worthy charities will benefit from their generosity."
The auction took place in the Nintendo DS Lounge in the Motorola Lodge, which turned out to be the favorite celebrity hangout. Dozens of stars stopped by to receive and enjoy new Nintendo DS systems and games, while sending messages to one another using the built-in PictoChatTM wireless chat feature. Lounge visitors included Paris and Nicky Hilton, Ludacris, Terrence Howard, Evan Rachel Wood, Khleo Thomas, Sean Astin, Joe Pantoliano, Seth Green, Aaron Ruell, Shannon Elizabeth, David Schwimmer, Marisa Tomei, Danny Masterson and Jason Isaacs.
During the Sundance Film Festival, celebrities and Hollywood hotshots played a variety of the best soon-to-be-released games, including WarioWareTM: Touched! for Nintendo DS, and Star Fox®: Assault and Donkey Kong® Jungle Beat for Nintendo GameCubeTM. The celebrity auction winners join the more than 1.3 million Nintendo DS owners in the United States. Nintendo remains on track to ship a total of 5 million Nintendo DS systems to the United States by the end of March.
The worldwide leader and innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its popular home and portable video game systems. Each year, hundreds of all-new titles for the best-selling Game Boy® Advance SP, Nintendo DSTM and Nintendo GameCubeTM systems extend Nintendo's vast game library and continue the tradition of delivering a rich, diverse mix of quality video games for players of all ages. Since the release of its first home video game system in 1983, Nintendo has sold more than 1.9 billion video games and more than 336 million hardware units globally, creating enduring industry icons such as MarioTM and Donkey Kong® and launching popular culture franchise phenomena such as Metroid®, ZeldaTM and Pokémon®. A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at www.nintendo.com.