With E3’s true debut happening at E3, many might wonder what Nintendo’s President, Hiroshi Yamauchi might have to say. Well, thanks to iemag (formerly GameWeek) translating an interview, we now have the answer!

The following is a question and answer session between the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi, regarding the highly anticipated next-generation game console from Nintendo, the GameCube:

Q: You have said that you were ready to suspend the launch of the Game Cube if it was poorly received at U.S. trade shows.

A: Fortunately, we got a good response. Local reports say that Nintendo received the same number of visitors as Microsoft, which is also launching a new machine. But at the Microsoft booth visitors just looked and moved on, but the Nintendo booth was crowded with people trying out the machine. I believe that people were interested in Game Cube's unique software. So naturally we'll go ahead with sales as planned.

Q: Game Cube is being launched at around the same time as Microsoft's Xbox. Will that have any impact?

A: The ideas behind Xbox and Game Cube are fundamentally different. Xbox has a built-in hard drive and is being touted as an extension of a PC. Microsoft is going after performance only, and does not understand that the game is played with software. A Nintendo is ultimately a toy. It is the most advanced machine for playing games, and it is totally different from the Microsoft product. It is just like trying to compare a sumo wrestler and pro-wrestler; they play by totally different rules. We do not consider Microsoft to be our competitor.

Q: Why did the company set the recommended retail price more than 10,000 yen lower than PlayStation 2 and Xbox?

A: People do not play with the game machine itself. They play with the software, and they are forced to purchase a game machine in order to use the software. Therefore the price of the machine should be as cheap as possible.