Electronic Gaming Monthly was granted an intervew with Nintendo's Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, the one and only Reginald Fils-Aime. The boys at EGM asked some tough questions to Reggie, and surprisingly Reggie shot back by actually giving answers. You can pick up the newest issue of the magazine for the full feature, but EGM's partner site 1UP.com has the interview available to read online.
Here are some excerpts from the interview, starting with Nintendo and their online goals:
...we believe we can drive up our participation rate of online play to be well in excess of about the 15 percent you see today. And the 15 percent comes from a number of industry sources, but if you think about it, 15 out of every 100 consumers who buy an online game actually go and play it online. That's pretty small. Versus what we want to see, for example, with Mario Kart [DS], is we want to see 80, 90, 95, near 100 percent of folks who actually enjoy the experience so much, who have access to the experience, to go do it online.
The mysterious Revolution controller may not be so mysterious to the group that matters the most:
The thing that I always find surprising, and certainly in the last year I've had wonderful opportunities to spend quality time with a number of our key third-party publishers, is when you sit down and share the innovation with them, just how excited they get. I saw it firsthand with DS; we're seeing it now with Revolution. The fact that you and your fans haven't seen the controller doesn't mean that no one else has.
The Game Boy Micro may be the surprise hit of the holiday season:
I have to tell you: The retailers have been all over [the GB Micro]. You know, they know their consumers about as well as we do, and the belief is that it's going to be the hot Christmas item this year. Especially when we announce the pricing.
For the entire interview, check out the feature at 1UP.
Quote
Third parties have seen the controller? Surely that means they are already developing games right? Hmm, if that's true i'm surprised nothing has been leaked, Revolution is the best kept secret ever.
QuoteMy best Ian Sane impression:
Or maybe they've seen the controller and they're too excited to begin development. They're just daydreaming about the possibilities while their PS3 and 360 projects still gotta be worked on, SO NOBODY WINS.
QuoteI'm surprised that Ian hasn't posted a livid response to this line yet, since he is the most outspoken person here about Nintendo's "shortcoming". You know Hi-Def, 5.1, "standard" optical media, etc...
Originally posted by: Reggie Fils-Aime
I have to assume that from a pricing standpoint, we will be substantially lower than the competition, because we don't have all of that added fluff that a gamer, frankly, doesn't—it's not core to gaming.
Quote
EGM: You haven't mentioned price or release yet, but the Revolution will be less expensive than the other guys'?
RFA: Do you know how much the other guys' are going to be?
Quote
You haven't even asked me a question about Micro, you haven't asked me about DS.
Quote
There's going to be no subscription fee; we're not looking at this as a profit-driven program.
Quote
And then if you look at licensee support, you've got Killer 7, we've got a number of titles coming from EA, a number of Ubisoft titles, you know, again, I think the characterization of low levels of licensee support is also mistaken
Quote
They may have an SP at home; they have a number of SPs at home, but this is going to be something that they pop in their pocket, and when they're hanging out with their buds or when they're in between classes at school or when they're on the bus, it's five minutes of pure fun.
Quote
Originally posted by: Djunknown
What parent in their right mind would spend cash on the SP, which is portable enough as is, get the Micro on top of it? Either that, or the kids today have fatter allowences than they did in my day...
Quote
Originally posted by: Bloodworth
Maybe someone can design an attachment to use your Micro AS a belt buckle.
Quote
Maybe someone can design an attachment to use your Micro AS a belt buckle.