Nintendo has launched its highly anticipated follow-up to the Game Boy Color handheld in North America--the 32-bit Game Boy Advance went on sale at retailers nationwide on Monday. The GBA has launched with 17 games, including such first-party products as Super Mario Advance and F-Zero: Maximum Velocity and third-party games such as Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, and GT Advance Racing Championship, among others. The lineup of GBA games will continue to grow briskly, as Nintendo promises more than 60 games for the handheld by the holiday season.

　　"Game Boy Advance sets a new standard in portable entertainment," says Peter Main, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Nintendo of America. "In fact, we expect it to expand on our dominance in this category with sales of up to 1 million units in the first three weeks."

　　The Game Boy Advance carries a suggested retail price of $99.95. The games retail for between $29.95 and $39.95. Nintendo expects to sell 23 million GBA units by March 31, 2002. The handheld sold 1.6 million units in its first six weeks following its Japanese launch on March 21. Nintendo has supported the North American launch of the Game Boy Advance with a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign called Life Advanced.