Nintendo has always been driven by a strong gaming franchise, stoically asserting that great games sell hardware, not the other way round. With long-running titles such as Mario, Zelda and Metroid under its belt, and 2 billion units sold in 20 years, the company has certainly put its money where its mouth is.
"We remain all about the game; actions speak louder than words," said Nintendo's president, Saturo Iwata, at this year's E3, where Nintendo unveiled the first details of its next generation console, the Revolution.
While Microsoft and Sony have been all teraflops and anti-aliasing in the promotion of the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation3, Nintendo has taken a more laid-back approach. Even weeks after E3, little has been revealed about the Revolution's capabilities. All the world knows is that it will have 512MB of internal Flash memory, two USB ports, built-in Wi-Fi access and will also allow users to download the company's back-catalogue of N64, SNES and NES games.
However, much of the speculation surrounding the system has been about what form the controller will take. Although Iwata has been careful not to reveal too much about the Revolution -- Nintendo is planning to release more details at the end of the year -- he has expressed reservations about the controllers gamers currently use.
"There are too many buttons and sticks on controllers for novice players, which is likely to discourage them from ever playing games at all," he says. "We want the Revolution's controller to be relevant to everybody and we really want people to feel like they want to touch and play with it."
Capturing the casual gaming market -- something Microsoft also wants to achieve -- should be an easy ride for Nintendo, which remains family-friendly in terms of content. Nowhere is this more evident than in Japan, where gaming is intrinsically rooted in the entertainment culture.
"Nintendo is very good at creating games that can appeal to the whole family," says Iwata. "There have been a lot of games created around excessive violence in the past few years and it seems to be escalating. From the business point of view, it doesn't make sense for us to follow suit.
"We cherish our hardcore gamers, but we always try to attract as many people as possible and expand the existing gaming population."
Nintendo recently unveiled its free-to-use worldwide DS Wi-Fi gaming service. The company has been sceptical about the potential of online console gaming, and Iwata still does not feel that Xbox Live is indicative of success because the number of Xbox owners playing on Xbox Live is still low.
As far as Nintendo is concerned, the future of multiplayer gaming is in Wi-Fi, not the Internet.
"If Nintendo sells 5 million DSs with Wi-Fi capabilities, then we want 5 million people to play with Wi-Fi," he said.
Nintendo is very proud of its portable wing and, as Reggie Fils-Aime, chief marketing officer of Nintendo, says: "For 16 years, Nintendo has owned the portable game space. We created it, and we're not moving out."
This has lead to speculation that the Revolution is designed to be portable, as its size and storage cradle suggest.
Nintendo's secrecy has also sparked theories that the controller is somehow contained within the Revolution -- that the machine itself is the controller.
Whatever transpires, Nintendo could use its heritage and innovation to provide gamers with an interesting alternative when the next-generation war finally arrives.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS