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Nintendo GameCube Enjoy Plus Pack Hanshin Tigers 2003 Victory Commemorative Model
An extremely interesting GameCube Hanshin Tigers lot has appeared on Avito, and I would like to tell you about the history of the release of this limited edition console.
You can see more details about this console in the article: Nintendo GameCube Hanshin Tigers photos.
Nintendo has a long history with baseball. They owned a controlling stake in the Seattle Mariners team, but later sold it. Now they own 10% of the team's shares. But this story is not about the Seattle Mariners, but about the Hanshin Tigers team.
Hanshin Tigers (Hanshin Tigers) is a baseball team from the Central League of Japan. The last time they won the Central League was in 1985.
And then suddenly Nintendo announced that in case of Hanshin Tigers' victory in the Central League, they would release a console "Nintendo GameCube Enjoy Plus Pack Hanshin Tigers 2003 Victory Commemorative Model".
Take a look at this note:
Preceding Events
When I studied the history of this console's release, one thing confused me. They planned to release a console not about an accomplished victory, but agreed to release it in case the victory happened.
I don't know what prompted these two organizations to collaborate, but the events preceding this are extremely interesting.
In 2002, GameCube sales were only 3.8 million units, which is almost half of the N64 sales in 1997 (5.8 million).
Of course, Nintendo was not satisfied with these results, and they were thinking about increasing sales. The first idea was to combine the Game Boy Player and GameCube in one bundle.
On May 21, 2003, an announcement appeared on Nintendo's website about the launch of a new product, "Enjoy Plus Pack". This way, Nintendo wanted to spread the popularity of Game Boy Advance to GameCube. Such a pack cost 19800 yen. And this was only the first step.
At this time (April-May 2003), the unknown to us Hanshin Tigers team in the Central League of Japan started crushing everyone and even set a record series of 10 home wins. Before this, the team's fans believed that the team was cursed. In 1985, they (the fans) drowned a large statue of Colonel Sanders (KFC) in the Dotonbori Canal because it resembled player Randy Bass, and none of them looked like the bearded American.
Championship Victory
From Nintendo's point of view, this turned out to be a beautiful marketing move. They agreed with Hanshin Tigers, that if they won the Central League, they would release a whole set of Nintendo GameCube Enjoy Plus Pack Hanshin Tigers 2003 Victory Commemorative Model with the 2003 championship logo (which would appear during the team's victory).
It should be noted that despite such a cool series of home wins, the Hanshin Tigers team was far from guaranteeing themselves a victory.
On September 15, 2003, the team finally won the Central League. However, they later failed to take the championship, but for Nintendo, the goal was achieved anyway.
In the joy of victory, KFC outlets hid all their Colonel Sanders statues so that they would not repeat the fate of their predecessor.
Already on September 16, 2003, the Nintendo GameCube Enjoy Plus Pack - commemorative model of the Hanshin Tigers 2003 championship went on sale.
And if you pay attention to the statistics at the beginning of the article, these two steps really helped increase the sales of the GameCube console, and in 2003, this console sold 5.76 million units.
