Reggie Fils-Aime, executive vice president marketing for Nintendo America, told Cnet News.com this week that the company’s next console “will cost less than $300,” and go on sale before Thanksgiving in November. Meanwhile, Microsoft started sales of its Xbox 360 in November for between $299 and $399. Sony plans to sell its PlayStation 3 device around the second quarter, and hasn’t given a price, though rumors has been spreading that it will cost around $499 (or more).

As a result, shares of Nintendo, the world’s biggest maker of handheld video game players, had their biggest gain since July 2003 on a report its Revolution console will sell for less than $300, undercutting Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Nintendo gained 6.4% at the 3 p.m. close of trading on the Osaka Securities Exchange.

“We want the game console to appeal to as many people as possible, and we have said that it won’t be that expensive,” said Nintendo spokesman Tsutomu Enoki, without elaborating.

In December, Nintendo said sales of its DS portable video game player reached 5.44 million in Japan since its introduction in December 2004. President Satoru Iwata said the DS passed the 5 million sales mark in one year and three weeks, faster than any of its other game player formats.

It took Sony’s PlayStation Portable 17 months to get to 5 million sales in Japan and Nintendo’s own Gameboy Advance reached the mark in 14 months, he said.