Nintendo Changing Game Plans?

[Doctor Dre]

Nintendo Changing Game Plans?

Nintendo's president said Wednesday that the Japanese video-game company will debut a new console next year that will take a different tack than its competitors, hinting that the company will try to attract more-casual gamers.

The new console, code-named Revolution, will be shown as a prototype next year and in final form at the annual E3 game conference in 2006, said Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president.

Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Iwata said the current model of the video-game business -- trying to attract gamers with hardware that features ever-more-dazzling graphics -- is dying. With game sales steadily declining in Japan and growth slowing in the American market, he said it's going to take more than dazzle to sell new machines. Console makers sell their wares at a loss in hopes of making a profit from game software sales.

"We need to propose a new idea so that the game industry can overcome its current crisis," Iwata said, according to a report by the Associated Press. "What we need is not a next-generation machine but a next-generation way of playing games."

He didn't elaborate. He also wouldn't give the specifications of the new machines for fear of competition, he said.

Nintendo -- which single-handedly revitalized the home video-game business in the late 1980s -- has been losing steam in the hardware business. It lost its lead in the console business to Sony's PlayStation in the mid-1990s and is facing even more competition from Microsoft's Xbox, which is preferred by more mature video-game fans. In addition, Nintendo's best-selling Game Boy Advance handheld game machine will face a formidable challenge from Sony's PSP handheld, slated to come out in a few months.

Facing competition from companies that can muster more technical resources, Nintendo is looking for different ways to stand out.

Still, the Revolution is not a specific reaction to Sony or slow sales of Nintendo's current platform, GameCube, said Schelley Olhava, a game analyst with IDC. With GameCube about to turn three, she said, Nintendo is simply preparing for the next step in the five- to six-year console life cycle. Microsoft, too, is currently developing a next-generation Xbox, ands Sony is working on a PlayStation 2 successor.

[Meta Ridley]

I dont care what they do next year just give me METROID PRIME 2 this year

Last time they tried to revolutionize the way people play games they came up with this seizure-inducing turd:



I've still never met a person that actually bought one of those virtual boys. What a stinker.

[Doctor Dre]

Originally posted by evildick
Last time they tried to revolutionize the way people play games they came up with this seizure-inducing turd:



I've still never met a person that actually bought one of those virtual boys. What a stinker.

My friend has one somewhere arround ... never played with it .

[gornyhuy]

I'll tell you what it is right now:

Immersion.


Basically fulfill the promise of virtual reality in game form and you will own the world.

[ColBigBalls]

the reason nobody buys games anymore is because they keep pumping out the same game over and over with a diffrent name
how many first person shooters, raceing, and fighting games can they make. There all the same now.

Keep pushing online games. Something thats never the same each time you play.

Best game i ever played wasent consoul but was awsome
Ultima Online.

In its day that game rooled. Those who polayed know what im talken about. Those who didnt missed out.

[Downtime]

Best reason to own a Gamecube : Animal Crossing. Keep laughing, just try it and I swear to god you'll never want to turn it off.

[Face (o_0)]

this seizure-inducing turd




i think virtual boy is the reason i'm going blind lmao

i wonder if i can sue