Reuters has announced that the sales of video games were not as expected during the holiday period in Japan. In between October 28 2002 and January 5 2003 is known as the 'holiday period'. Both PS2 and Gamecube saw lower sales then the same period last year. Xbox was not available in Japan last year.

The Gamecube sales went down 54.9% from last year, the number of units sold was 409,747. More units were expected to be sold because of the recently released Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

Game Boy Advance sales were quite the opposite though, their sales went up since last year, to 38.9%, with total system units sold going to 1.81 million. Recently released Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire are responsible for a lot of the unit sales.

Games wise, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire sold 1.7 million units, Mario Party 4 sold 698,339 units and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker sold 542,608 units.