2 New Consoles Beat ‘Potter’ in Weekend Sales

Nintendo Co. and Microsoft Corp. both boasted pulling in more from sales of their new video game consoles than the weekend box-office take of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,� which took in $93.5 million.

Nintendo reported $98 million in sales of GameCube consoles, games and peripherals Sunday, the first day the console was available in stores. The figure included games made by other companies for the GameCube.

Microsoft said it tallied more than $93 million in sales of Xbox and related products, not including new games made for Xbox by companies including Electronic Arts Inc., THQ Inc. and Activision Inc.

Meanwhile, a Goldman Sachs survey found that by the end of the weekend, 73% of U.S. retailers had sold out their inventory of Xboxes, which are priced at $300 apiece. About half of the stores surveyed said they were sold out of GameCubes, which retail for $200. Microsoft had shipped about 300,000 consoles last Wednesday, and Nintendo shipped 700,000 consoles.

Microsoft estimated that it would produce between 1 million and 1.5 million Xbox consoles by the end of the year.

Nintendo said it would ship 1.1 million GameCubes to North America this year.