Nintendo of America's Fils-Aime Talks GB Micro, Rev Dev Kits

A new interview with Nintendo of America executive VP of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime by technology weblog Engadget has covered a variety of topics, including all of Nintendo's known hardware and a few of its most anticipated software releases, and revealing several new details on the company's progress along the way. When speaking of the company's overall strategy, Fils-Aime sticks to the consistently stated view that Nintendo is the sole company seeking to expand the marketplace beyond the hardcore, but gives more enlightening answers about more specific topics. On the subject of hardware redesigns for Nintendo's portable system, Fils-Aime acknowledges the regularity of new revisions and says "I wouldn’t say that that’s an unreasonable assumption," to the possibility of another Nintendo DS revision after the upcoming DS Lite, which still has no set release date in North America. As for the GB Micro, an ultra-small version of the Game Boy Advance, Fils-Aime reports that "Sales of Game Boy Micro have been exactly where we predicted them to be. It's ten to fifteen percent of total Game Boy Advance sales, targeted against a very specific demographic who want something high image, who want something unique, and that’s exactly where that product has delivered. We continue to sell it and we will continue to sell it for the foreseeable future." Fils-Aime also discussed the company's next-generation Revolution console, which he says is still only a codename and not the final name of the system. "We have shipped over a thousand controller dev kits to developers so that they can begin getting experience with the controller mechanics. The response to the controller has been fantastic." On Nintendo's precise plans for moving into online gaming, the VP was cagier: "In terms of the details of Virtual Console, how it will work, the titles available, the entire environment and experience, we plan on sharing much of that detail at E3." The full interview, including discussion of the Wi-Fi Connection and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess's release date, is available at Engadget's website.