While most Americans merely ate turkey over the Thanksgiving weekend, Nintendo is claiming it ate the competition. In a release today, the Japanese game giant trumpeted that its GameCube console sold more than 500,000 copies during Thanksgiving week, "easily surpassing its console competitors." In a statement, George Harrison, Nintendo of America’s senior vice president of marketing, boasted that the holiday push was part of Nintendo's grand scheme, “All along, our business plan for this year was to maximize consumer interest and sales during the fourth quarter."

　　Since it lowered the GameCube's price to $99 in September, Nintendo has claimed to have outsold Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox on several occasions. Today's announcement is significant, since the post-Thanksgiving weekend is considered the busiest retail weekend of the year. But, because the GameCube's price cut drastically slashed the console's profit margin, the sales jump's effect on Nintendo's bottom line has yet to be determined.

　　However, there is no debating that the Game Boy Advance SP remains the jewel in Nintendo's crown, as the game deck sold nearly 600,000 units from November 24 to 30.