1999, Sega promoted the game with a website dedicated to ChuChu Rocket!, and a 15-second commercial advertising the game was solicited to television stations across the country, with the commercial also made available to download through the website. ChuChu Rocket! released in Japan on November 11, 1999 and climbed to the top of the Japanese sales charts in its first week on sale, selling 35,000 copies and knocking the PlayStation release of Chrono Trigger off the top spot. That December, video game magazine Famitsu held a contest using a ChuChu-themed minigame for the Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit (VMU) that could be downloaded from the internet. Players who completed the minigame were given a password to send to Famitsu. Various prizes were given out to winners of the contest, including Dreamcast controllers, VMU stickers, and pens. In January 2000, Sega of America announced it would bring ChuChu Rocket! to North America on March 2, 2000, three months earlier than the original anticipated release in June. Prior to the North American release of the game, a Shockwave demo featuring 30 levels from the game's puzzle mode was made available to play on personal computers through Sega's website. ChuChu Rocket! was released in North America on March 7, 2000, a week later than had been announced earlier. It retailed for $29.99 in America — below the average for new Dreamcast games. Sega held an online tournament on March 25, 2000 where players could battle with members of Sonic Team, the Dreamcast network team, and other Sega employees in online matches. The European and PAL versions were not released until months after the North American release, on June 9, 2000. In Europe, ChuChu Rocket! was mailed free to subscribers of Dreamarena, the European Dreamcast online gaming service. At the time of the game's release in Europe, Dreamarena had over 25,000 subscribers, despite the absence of online play beforehand. Ports A port of ChuChu Rocket! was released as a launch game for the Game Boy Advance in Japan on March 21, 2001. The release garnered interest as the first game Sega published for a Nintendo system. This version retains all the gameplay modes of the Dreamcast version except online play. Players can use Game Link Cables to connect up to four systems together to play using only one cartridge. Sonic Team also selected 2,500 of the 17,000 custom puzzles uploaded to the Dreamcast servers to