Nintendo On Revolution Price, European Launch

Author: by David Jenkins, Simon Carless

In comments made during the holiday season, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has stated in a Yahoo! Japan article that the Revolution will go on sale in Japan for less than the price of any of its rivals. These broad comments suggest a price tag of below $300 – although it is unclear whether such a price would follow for other territories. However, the Japanese Xbox 360 bundle launched at a cost of 37,900 yen ($343), so it's difficult to put undue stress on this statement, which simply re-iterates Nintendo's position that the Revolution is intended to be a less expensive, mass market machine. In addition, comments on the official Nintendo of Europe site appear to suggest that the Revolution console will launch in Europe this year, as well as in Japan and North America. As part of a 2006 "Ultimate Preview" the website states that the follow-up to the GameCube will be released on an "as-yet-unannounced date in 2006". Technically, the text could only be referring to a launch of the new console in Japan, but the implication is clearly that it will be in Europe this year. Until the launch of the Xbox 360 in December, Europe has traditionally always been the last of the three major territories to receive a new hardware launch, with Nintendo in particular being infamous for long delays in the territory. Interestingly, after describing the motion sensor controller and backwards compatibility of the Revolution the website feature ends with the quote "But if you think that's all there is to know about Revolution, think again... 2006 is going to be very interesting indeed." This appears to confirm recent comments made by Shigeru Miyamoto about the Revolution having "another secret".