Nintendo Game Bot Micro on its way

Nintendo, which announced the European launch at Europe's biggest computer games fair in Leipzig, said late on Tuesday the Game Boy Micro would be available from the end of September in the United States at $99. The European price is the same as that for the Game Boy Advance SP, Nintendo's current console model -- which may surprise analysts who believed it should be priced lower. "Non-gamers thought the price should be lower but gamers thought it should be higher," Nintendo's European Marketing Director Jim Merrick told Reuters in an interview. He declined to give any sales targets for the Game Boy Micro, saying Nintendo did not yet know whether buyers of its current consoles would switch to the Micro, or whether the device would lure new customers. "Will it be additive or will it be cannibalization?" "Certainly we're competing with ourselves but I believe because of the design it will open up new markets for us." He said around 500,000 Micros would be available at the European launch and that they would be able to play a library of up to 700 Game Boy games. With a nod to the design of Apple's iconic iPod, the sleek Game Boy Micro weighs just 85 grams (3 ounces) and Nintendo says it is the world's smallest console. "Certainly the iPod has done a lot to stimulate broad social acceptance of devices like PDAs (personal digital assistants) and MP3 music players," said Merrick. But will people be willing to carry a mini games console around as well as, or instead of, an iPod -- on top of a mobile phone and possibly a PDA or a Blackberry? "We're not only competing for people's money, we're competing for share of pocket.