Fils-Aime Outlines Nintendo's Next-Gen Strategy

In an interview with technology site CNET News, Nintendo executive VP of marketing Reggie Fils-Aime has discussed the company's "New Year's resolutions" for 2006, during which it will launch its next-generation successor to the GameCube, currently codenamed the Revolution. Some of the resolutions are simply restatements of past goals for the console, such as Fils-Aime's claim that "The mythical performance vector for this industry is more processing power and prettier pictures," and Nintendo will avoid overemphasizing technical advances in favor of its more innovative control mechanism, previously unveiled at the 2005 Tokyo Game Show. Other points are newer, such as the VP's statement that the Revolution "will cost less than $300," which would make it the most inexpensive of the three next-generation systems. Fils-Aime also discussed an example of how the controller could be used for more mainstream games: "So if I'm developing a football game, I can move across the field, focus against a particular receiver with pinpoint accuracy and throw the ball right to that receiver much as a real-life quarterback does." On some questions, such as a precise launch date and possible launch games, Fils-Aime stonewalled, saying only that the system was still due in 2006 and that games would be on display at E3 2006, in similar comments to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's predictions reported earlier. Fils-Aime also disagreed with the belief that Sony's PlayStation Portable carries more "buzz" than the Nintendo DS, saying: "The fact is, we have a number of not only worldwide but even U.S.-centric million-unit selling games, and Sony doesn't. We have games that are successfully expanding the audience for gaming for DS, and that's not true for Sony. The buzz for the DS is huge and growing and the most anticipated handheld titles are on our platform, not on Sony's."