The Revolution will come before the holidaysNintendo spills a beanBy Stuart Gorman: Friday 20 January 2006, 06:18NOBODY HAS had a freaking clue what Nintendo is up to, until now perhaps.Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata has just put forth a little info regarding both release timing and pricing for the Revolution."We can't disclose the Revolution's release period yet, but we have no plans to miss out on the year-end sales battle. As for North America, we need to release it by Thanksgiving, or otherwise we won't receive support from the retail industry. So the Revolution will be released prior to that period."So, under some duress from retailers and with the reality of economic concerns (i.e people buy crap during the holidays), Nintendo admits they are locked into getting their contender in the ring by Thanksgiving.Iwata also said, "The amount of money that people are willing to spend on videogames is getting less every year. Even if it's a superb machine, it's not going to sell if it's 50,000 yen ($434). We plan to make [the Revolution] an affordable price."The implied cap of 400-some dollars is promising, although earlier speculation had put the console as low as $300. What interests me in that statement is his supposition that people are spending less on video games every year. That doesn't seem to jive with the record sales numbers for both console and PC games we've been seeing.Maybe it's something like psychological warfare. Start a rumor that people don't want to spend as much as they used to; suddenly everyone believes it, and the cheapest console has an even stronger argument for itself. This would of course mean that Nintendo is planning on the Revolution costing less than the other two next-gen consoles, which seems likely enough.Only time will tell. µ
An official survey conducted for Nintendo of America by marketing company Zanthus may shed new light on Revolution's "Virtual Console" concept. The website www.classicgamer.com took part in the online questionnaire, which offered a more in-depth look at the game download system for Nintendo's next-generation console than has previously been seen. The survey even featured mocked-up artwork representing how the graphical user interface for the process may look and function. The concepts below are by no means final, but nevertheless Zanthus prepared these materials based on direction from Nintendo of America and therefore they should not be discounted.
Nintendo spills some beansA Revolution for less than $300By Stuart Gorman: Monday 23 January 2006, 20:15HOT DAMN! Unless the Revolution is slated to come out on April 1st, this might be hard to swallow.An interview on News.com with Nintendo of America's executive veep of sales and marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, revealed some savvy plans on Nintendo's part.The most striking news is that the Revolution will be available for less than $300. Well, so was the Xbox 360... sort of. More like $600 plus, if you count the hard drive and peripherals. Fils-Aime implied that a complete and accessible package will cost less than $300, which could give MS and Sony a run for their money. Nintendo's strategy here is to keep the console inexpensive, and not waste the consumer's money on features they may never use, like HD games.On the other end of things, Fils-Aime said the Revolution will be more affordable for game developers. Although this assertion wasn't well backed up in the interview, it sounds like a good idea. We'll just see what they have in store.As for launch titles, Fils-Aime was almost entirely reticent. He did, however, say that we would see most of these announced at E3 this year, which puts the Revolution's release window squarely between May and November. This deduction at least narrows Nintendo's official window of "2006" by a few points. µ
