Nintendo releases Game Boy cameras in U.S.
A new camera from Nintendo (NTDOY), using technology several years old, snaps into the hand-held Game Boy gaming device and lets you take grainy, black-and-white pictures, which you can then manipulate on the Game Boy or print out with a grainy, low-resolution printer.
And in Japan, the toy is the single biggest-selling digital camera on the market.
| If Nintendo sells 1.5 million cameras by the end of the year, it will beat out much more sophisticated offerings from Kodak and Olympus. |
Nintendo sold more than 700,000 of the $50 units in the first five weeks of its launch, earlier this year. By comparison, only 1 million digital cameras were sold in Japan last year, and the worldwide market is about 2 million.
Observers say the camera, which was released in stores this week, is so popular because, unlike other digital cameras, it is easy to use, cheap and fun. And since it is compatible with all 22 million Game Boys in circulation in North America, it could become a runaway hit on this side of the Pacific as well.
If Nintendo sells 1.5 million camera units by the end of the year, as it expects, it will beat out much more expensive and sophisticated offerings from Kodak, Olympus and others.
Part of the camera's appeal, according to experts, is that it allows users to do a lot with their pictures for a low price. The only components are the snap-on camera and the $55 thermal printer, which outputs the images as stickers.
The camera software (part of the cartridge) lets you paint on the images, distort them, stick them together into panoramas, make montages out of them, even embed sounds and animation. It stores up to 30 images in a virtual photo album.
The cartridge also includes clip art for enhancing the images.