In an interview with Reuters Thursday, Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata made it crystal clear that they intend to return to a leadership position in the next generation race. and will have a successor to the GameCube ready for 2005.

Nintendo is far behind Sony in the current console race, with Sony having a year and a half head start with it's PlayStation 2 console. Iwata feels that if GameCube had launched at the same time, "the result would have been very different."

While the new machine is planned for 2005, it will likely depends on when developers can have software ready, which may push the machine into 2006.

Nintendo has firmly denied rumors that they would follow the lead of Sega, which pulled out of the console hardware market to develop only software. "When we withdraw from the home game console, that's when we withdraw from the video game business," Iwata said.

In an effort to shore up hardware and software sales in the current generation, Nintendo will be releasing more software that will take advantage of the Game Boy Advance's ability to link up with the GameCube, including new Pokemon games for each system. "Our focus for 2003 is to offer new types of games which allow consumers to play both on the GameCube and Game Boy Advance," Iwata said. Nintendo is also considering another price cut, although the plans are not immediate.