Everyone seems so confused as to why Nintendo would push Zelda back so far. Am I the only one that sees the mass money making game in the same fiscal year as the mass money losing new console as a great idea to shut up stock holders and keep you in the black for the next fiscal year?

Can we say run-on sentance?

And what the hell? If I don't see Sega announce Seaman for the DS before the end of the year, I'm gonna flip. The system was DESIGNED for the game. Someone over at Sega needs to put down the crack pipe and pump out the Seaman.

Scum

I do believe Zelda was delayed for creative reasons, but your theory may well be part of why it was delayed so far...right into the next fiscal year. Nintendo traditionally sells their consoles at or above manufacturing cost, but perhaps Revolution will be different. It's hard to guess at this point, since we still know so little about the system's technical specifications.

If you ever want a good sequel to Seaman, pray that the folks at Sega keep puffing away on that pipe. Otherwise it just couldn't live up to the original. I definitely agree that Seaman would fit perfectly on the DS.

Two things I wanted to say.

1. If you look at NES sales numbers, they range in the millions. If you look at current games, hitting a million is a milestone. Why do you think this is? If the video game industry is supposed to be growing, shouldn't the numbers be growing as well? Or am I just completely missing something or wrong.

2. With the Revolution selling old games, do you think this will affect the sales numbers for these games? If an old game has sold 1 million copies, and sells 1 million on the Revolution it will legitimately have sold 2 million copies. Do you believe the sales numbers will change?

1. Nintendo carefully planned NES releases so that, for a number of years, practically every game was guaranteed to sell over a million copies. The gaming industry is now much more of a free market. In other words, if you add up the sales of all games, software sales have improved dramatically since the late 80s. There are fewer million sellers because software sales are now divided among dozens of major releases every quarter, whereas in the NES days, Nintendo made sure that only one or two major games could be released each month. The NES userbase was enormous, and there was no competition for a few years there, so you can see how those sales numbers came to be.

2. It depends on how you track those sales numbers. There's no "official" database of sales data, so your question doesn't really make sense. Whether downloads are counted up with historial sales data depends on whether your particular sales tracking service decides to count the downloads. I expect that the NPD Group will track downloads as separate SKUs, especially considering that NPD wasn't around when many of those old games were first released.

Hey bag!

Nintendo's focus on low power consumption seems to be consistant with

size, but do you think that due to the size Nintendo may try and

market it as a portable console? They could release a screen and a

battery, car ac adapter etc. This was one of the first things I

thought of as a Revolutionary aspect when I heard about the size.

- Paul

It's a strong possibility. But it's also nothing new, as the GC, PS2, and even the Xbox are technically portable with the right accessories. Nintendo could take the initiative of releasing their own first-party screen though, which so far has only been done by Sony and only on an aging system (the re-released PSone). Nintendo had a gorgeous LCD screen prototype for GameCube that never came out; I would love, LOVE to see that thing revived for Revolution. That the system will play DVD movies is a perfect compliment to this possibility.

For the record, your the man. First off why don't Nintendo just give me all the crazy games that only ever see a release in Japan, even if it don't sell that well it would help the huge gaps in the release dates on the GameCube. I'm currently jamming my GC into an old NES and was just wondering if you or the readers have any cool GC mods?

Nick

Nintendo could easily translate some of those crazy Japanese games and release them during slow times here in the States, but it takes money to print those discs and get them to the stores, and it takes even more money if the company wants to do any marketing or PR to actually spark some sales. Nintendo of America evaluates every game to determine whether it's financially viable to release it here. Unfortunately, in the case of Band Bros. and many other games, the verdict was "no". And they may well be right.

I'd like to see that mod when you're done, it sounds pretty cool. And thanks, I really am the man. See below.

EBGames seems to be listing Lego Star Wars as coming to Gamecube. We

all know LucasArts, in their inifinite stupidity and despite solid

sales, decided a year or so ago to foresake the Gamecube. Since then I

haven't played any Star Wars games (save KoToR), since my Nintendo

fanboyishness overrides my Star Wars fanboyishness.

They claim the game is shipping in October. Is there any truth to

this? I really hope LucasArts could come back to Gamecube porting,

maybe even port their future Star Wars games to Gamecube as well.

EB Games Link

-PS2stinks

I'm skeptical of this game actually being released. For one thing, it wasn't on Nintendo's huge release schedule update today. For another, the publisher is listed as Eidos, a company even less active on GameCube than LucasArts.

Previously, you mentioned (in a rather offhand fashion) that Zelda's delay may allow for some unlockable Revolution features. As I vaguely recall, Nintendo has already set a precedent for this, but I just can't remember exactly, and I was wondering if you knew. Wasn't there a GBA-only unlockable area in the Gameboy Color Zeldas?

Also, I suppose it isn't too far fetched that some of the time could be spent tuning up TP for the Revolution's wacky controller. Depending on how wacky it is, of course.

Lastly, I was strolling through my local Walmart, and noticed that those wonderful Donkey Kong bongo box sets were on clearance sale for $35. I couldn't help but get Jungle Beat; I've been waiting for a sale like that since it came out. It's the sort of thing they don't advertise, or even honor on their site, so it may just be a local (Savannah) thing, but then again, it could be country-wide. If there are any PGC readers who couldn't bring themselves to pay $55 for a strange, and extremely fun, novelty, now might a good time to think again.

Yes, the Oracle games had GBA-only areas. Great find on Jungle Beat, at $35. And it's not just a novelty...I think it's a great old-school platforming game that just happens to be played on a silly controller.

Hey thanks for your insight. First, to second an earlier post that was made in here, I checked out that link to "Tower SP", and that game does look awesome. If the problem is that it takes too long translating it to English, just tell them not to worry and send it in Japanese. I'll figure out how to play it anyway. Second, I hate bagging on Nintendo, because I consider myself a fierce Nintendo loyalist, but I think that one of the problems with the DS is that when it came out, it didn't look as sleek as the prototype (crossing my fingers that doesn't happen with the Revolution). But what I mean, and I don't know any other way to put this- but I think that the gray/silver DS that was released kinda has a cheap look to it. It even kept me from buying it. I finally decided to buy when Mario 64 was added, and Nintendo came out with the metallic blue model, which I think looks more refined.

Anyway, now to my question. Has there been any talk about a possible Nintendo DSW (a.k.a. Duel Screen-Wide). I think that Nintendo could sell the DS with a wider top screen by reconfiguring the speakers to be taller and thinner on each side of the screen. That way, if and when Nintendo does come out with movies for the DS, a DSW, will be able to compete better against Sony's handheld. They could charge like $180 or something for it or even $150, since the DS is now less expensive. I realize that some games would have to be reconfigured to fit a larger top screen, but that might not even be necessary. What do you think the possibilities of this would be?

-Tyler

If you don't mind playing the game in Japanese, just import a copy for yourself. Lik-Sang has it in stock.

Widening one of the DS screens doesn't sound like a good idea to me, especially if the only reason for doing it is to better display movies, which is not a primary function of the DS. One feature I would love to see on a redesigned DS is a true analog stick for 3D games. It could be added without changing the core DS technology, and it would not have to interfere with the new hardware's ability to play older DS games. Sony did it on PSone with fantastic results.

That's all I've got time for tonight, but check back tomorrow for more mailbag fun!