Nintendo 64 Debut Empties Store Shelves

Isn’t it just like a celebrity to hide from his adoring public when it wants him most?

That’s what Super Mario, diminutive star of untold Nintendo of America video games, has done since Sunday, when the company released its latest game system, Nintendo 64.

The disappearing act hasn’t exactly been according to script, though.

Nintendo expects all 350,000 of its game systems in U.S. stores - at a list price of $199.99 - to be snapped off shelves this week.

That leaves children grieving and parents trolling toy-store aisles in forlorn hope of finding an over-looked N64, as the system is known to computer-game cognoscenti.

An “out-of-stock” sign is usually a temporary inconvenience. But the phenomenal success of the product in Japan, where a half-million units were sold in the first hour of sales, and the fact that N64’s key computer chip can be made by only one company, means only about 150,000 to 250,000 more systems will be shipped to the United States before the holidays, a spokeswoman for the Redmond, Wash.-based company said. Nintendo expects to sell all of them.

What had parents and video-game junkies queuing up outside suburban toy stores in Sunday’s chilly predawn hours is a 64-bit game system that is considered the industry’s most advanced to date. Scenes are detailed and change seamlessly. Graphics don’t flutter.

But huge opening weekend sales don’t necessarily herald N64’s long-term dominance, cautioned Lew Alton, a San Francisco analyst who follows Nintendo.

Many of those early buyers are what the industry calls “early adapters” people who can always be counted on to rush out and buy the latest gadget, he said. Whether large numbers will follow remains to be seen.

Flagging interest didn’t seem to be a problem at the Toys “R” Us in Federal Way, Wash. Employee Steve Anderson said even people who had reserved a copy of N64, apparently worried that their $25 deposit wasn’t security enough, stood in line early Sunday morning to grab one of the 160 boxes in stock.

“It was a mob,” Anderson said, recalling the people dashing for the display. By Monday night, all unreserved N64s had been sold.

Meanwhile, Seattle-area Blockbuster Video stores had begun renting out the new system - $16.99 for a two-day rental. Shelves were bare.

Is a video-game player worth the time and expense? “I think it’s better than all of them,” Anderson said. “The graphics, they’re great.”

Nintendo has taken no chances in getting the word out to the unconverted or the tightfisted. A $54 million advertising barrage will hit children from the moment they sit down in front of their Kellogg’s cereal to the moment they switch off Nickelodeon at night.

The N64 has a lot of ground to make up for Nintendo in its bruising battle against competitors Sega and Sony. About 4 million Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation systems have been sold since they made their debut last year.

Another obstacle out of the gate for Nintendo is lack of software. The company expects to have a dozen games available for the N64 by the end of the year. Sega, by contrast, will have close to 200.

“That’s going to be a confounding problem, because there’s not a plethora” of independent software producers for the N64, Alton said.

Sega will up the ante this fall when it introduces NetLink, which will enable a Saturn user to access the Internet.