Iwata: Nintendo Aiming for Global Revolution Launch

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has commented on the company's plans for launching its next-generation Revolution console to Japanese newspaper Nikkei Business, and consumer site GameSpot has made a partial translation. Nintendo will aim for a worldwide simultaneous release of the system, which will happen sometime after March 2006. "I can only say that it's coming out during 2006, but it will be after the current fiscal year," said Iwata. "We hope to make it a simultaneous worldwide release as much as it's possible." No video game console has yet seen a truly simultaneous worldwide release due to coordination and production difficulties; Microsoft also attempted the feat with its upcoming Xbox 360 but recently scaled back plans, instead opting to stagger the launches by a few weeks. "There's a reason no-one has done this before and we are figuring that out," said Microsoft VP Peter Moore about the 360 launch, “If we knew what we were getting into, we might not have done it.” Iwata also said that he expects the Revolution to outperform the company's current-generation system in sales: "It would be a complete failure if we didn't sell more units than the Nintendo GameCube." The GameCube to date has sold just under 20 million units worldwide, according to latest estimates.