Iwata Hints at Return to Development, Revolution Secrets

In a recent interview with MTV News, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata hinted at a number of topics, including the possibility of him returning to game development. However, he admitted that the current obligations of his business role within the company, some of which no doubt include preparations for next month's E3 conference, have kept him too busy to seriously consider the shift in focus. "Recently I have gained a little bit of interest in getting more involved in game development again," commented Iwata before adding that much of his free time was spent during weekends preparing speeches. As expected, Iwata was careful about revealing too much information regarding the Revolution, and only hinted at features of the console that have not yet been announced, but which will be unveiled in May at E3. "Our primary focus with the Nintendo Revolution has been to create a system that can do things that the other systems can't, that has functionality that the other systems don't have," he said. "And speaking to that, there are some other unique features of the Nintendo Revolution hardware that we haven't discussed yet that we will be announcing at E3." "Up until now, we've seen when there's a video game console in the home, there's people who play the video game console, but then there's a distinct wall," he continued. "There's people in the house that don't play video games whatsoever. And when people see what we have to offer at E3, they're going to understand that that wall's been broken down and we now have created a system that's going to allow for a much, much larger user base than any system we've seen before." During his keynote at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California, Iwata addressed attendees by saying that the industry was in need of 'disruption,' a concept highlighted by the recent success of non-conventional titles such as the Brain Training series for the DS, as well as innovative past releases such as Pikmin and Animal Crossing. However, he was also quick to jump to the defense of sequels to popular Nintendo franchises as well. "We have a very large fanbase of people who expect to see sequels to those games," he said. "It is our responsibility to meet the expectations of that fanbase, but in doing so, the one thing we absolutely focus on with every one of those sequels is finding ways to innovate within that franchise." That said, Iwata followed this comment up by stating, "If all we were to ever do is just continue to make sequels and not do anything new or different, people would view us as a very conservative company and a company that is unwilling to really take new initiatives and embark on new adventures. That's not the type of person I am and not the kind of company I want Nintendo to be."