Nintendo 64 Sales To Top 1.6 Million Units

REDMOND - Nintendo of America officials say sales of the new Nintendo 64 video game system are expected to top at least 1.6 million systems by the end of the year.

"Nintendo 64 hardware and software retail sales will have averaged more than $5 million a day from our Sept. 29 launch through Dec. 31," Peter Main, Nintendo executive vice president of sales and marketing, said yesterday.

The 1.6 million system sales in three months makes Nintendo 64 "easily the fastest selling system ever," he said. "Our sales rate is three times that of our nearest competitor when its system launched a year ago."

For consumers unable to find a Nintendo 64 before the holidays, Main said, another 500,000-700,000 systems will be shipped to North America between Jan. 1 and March 31.

The company said the product launch helped reinvigorate the entire video game sector. Independent sales data show that since the Nintendo 64 introduction, total monthly industry sales have jumped about 30 percent over last year. Total video game revenues for all of 1996 should wind up about 17 percent ahead of 1995, Nintendo said.