[Nintendo Revolution 61] Live @ GDC!

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Op donderdag 23 maart 2006 21:09 schreef Tomasso het volgende:
Ik denk trouwens dat er steeds meer games voor de Virtual Console zullen volgen. Zodra ze zien dat het een succes is, willen ze er natuurlijk allemaal aan meedingen. Ik zal niet verbaasd zijn als straks het merendeel van oude games te downloaden valt.

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Breaking: GDC - Nintendo Keynote

The mood before Satoru Iwata's keynote at Game Developers Conference could best be described as ebullient, with the Kaiser Chiefs' 'I Predict A Riot' blasting over the sound system, and a sign-wielding activist outside the San Jose Civic Auditorium exhorting Iwata and Nintendo to 'Drop The Bomb'. ( !! )

In the event, an extremely entertaining speech yielded two minor depth charges (the new Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS, and confirmation of support from Sega and Hudson for Genesis and Turbografx/PC Engine titles for the Revolution's Virtual Console service.)

When Iwata took the stage, as introduced by GDC Director Jamil Moledina, he seemed very contented, commenting: "Since I still have the heart of a gamer, I have the most fun talking to you." His central point was that thinking different is vital, discussing a certain company which had ideas to redefine the business and to expand the market - but revealing that this company is not Nintendo, but Pepsi, who, according to Iwata: "...stopped asking how it could sell more cola. Instead it started asking what other things were profitable", in its battle with Coke.

This was the point Nintendo is trying to make, as Iwata phrased it: "For some time, we have believed that the game industry is ready for disruption." Iwata particularly referenced Nintendogs, selling 6 million copies around the world, and the success of DS, he suggested, is based around "brand new software" and hardware that is disruptive and different in various ways.

Iwata referenced that the DS has reached 6 million Japanese sales in 14 months, as opposed to the GBA in 20 months and the PlayStation 2 in 21 months - showing that the company is dominating the handheld market, through what Iwata notes as disruptive software, such as the Brain Training line of games, which have collectively sold well over 5 million copies in Japan.

The Nintendo executive discussed, in detail, the Brain Training concept, quipping: "It started where all great ideas being - from a board of directors." He referenced an older Nintendo director who complained that his peers did not play games, and the adapted idea of an all-ages title. There was a book named 'Train Your Brain' which was particularly successful in Japan, and was used by the CFO, so Nintendo put together a task force, and Iwata himself met with the brain training author Professor Kawashima, on the day of the DS launch, and managed to agree a deal with him.

Iwata then assembled 9 developers, and told them that they could finish the first Brain Training game in 90 days - though he noted: "At least they couldn't waste much time complaining!" He then helped his sales people try a hands-on approach to selling through to retail, making the sales people

Bill Trinen of Nintendo was then introduced, and he ran through the basic arithmetic, numeric, and even Sudoku-related features of the English language version of Brain Age, before introducing Jamil Moledina, Spike TV's Geoff Keighley, and Maxis' Will Wright on stage, who ran through a competitive game of the title against all four of each other, projected onto the big screen - Trinen was victorious both times!

Re-introducing Iwata, the Nintendo exec explained the initial Japanese ordering for the first Brain Age game was 70,000 units, but by the time the second Brain Age game was previewed, the Japanese retailers wanted to order in 850,000. Explaining this success, Iwata explained happily, if cheekily: "If you want to succeed in game development, you need to follow two simple rules. First, listen to your board of directors. And second, listen to your Chief Financial Officer."

He then announced that all keynote attendees would get a copy of Brain Age to show their friends, which naturally went down rather well in the presentation.

Iwata then went on to discuss the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, explaining: "Normally, making things easy for players make it harder for developers", but that Nintendo had put a great deal of thought into how the connection is used. He countered suggestions that the relatively closed (friend-oriented) nature of some of existing Wi-Fi titles, such as Animal Crossing, maybe have that players "have the choice and freedom" to decide how to play. He mentioned that more than 1 million unique users have played more than 29 million sessions. They reached 1 million players in 4 months, whereas Xbox Live took 20 months to do so.

Bill Trinen then re-appeared, and played Metroid Prime Hunters with three of the NCL development team, showing off the Wi-Fi action over the local network, and getting his ass kicked in the impressive-looking FPS game in the meantime. Turning back to Iwata, the Nintendo boss indicated that Metroid Prime Hunters is a prime example of Nintendo "not turning our backs on the kind of games that hardcore players already love."

He then went on to introduce Tetris DS - "something that even your grandmother will enjoy", and the previously announced New Super Mario Bros, before revealing video footage of a brand new title, Legend Of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, which will launch "later this year", and sported Wind Waker-style art with a partially topdown view, and even lots of touchscreen-related puzzles and ship navigation effects. Iwata also confirmed that Zelda titles will be shown both on DS and GameCube at E3.

Iwata's final section simply commented: "How did we get the idea for the Revolution controller?", and the Nintendo exec started with the question: "Why is it that everyone feels comfortable with a TV controller, but feel nervous picking up a game controller?" He revealed that the first meetings on the Revolution controller were in early 2004, and major points were that the controller had to be wireless, the look needed to be simple and nonthreatening, but sophisticated enough to handle complex games. Around 15 people were involved trying to figure out the answer.

Interestingly, Iwata revealed that the Metroid Prime producers said that they didn't like the initial idea, that a full normal controller be added to the existing 'TV remote style', suggesting that Nintendo add a small second controller, and so: "The experience truly feels more intuitive." Iwata suggested that this was a very expensive process - in terms of the R&D costs and the manufacturing costs, and notably said: "While some people put their money on the screen, we decided to put ours into the game experience", in an attempt to "not just improve the market, but disrupt it."

Another example of this was Iwata's second major announcement - of support from Sega and Hudson for Genesis and Turbografx/PC Engine titles for the Revolution's Virtual Console service, a revelation that drew such cheers from the audience that the second half of his statement could barely be discerned.

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In a statement issued alongside Iwata's speech, Nintendo also said, "The new forms of innovative software that can be created by any size developer will be made available for download via Revolution's Virtual Console service." At the very least, it seems that in addition to retro rereleases from classic consoles, Nintendo is looking to offer smaller, downloadable games through the Revolution, perhaps similar to those found in the Xbox Live Marketplace.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 08:36 schreef Xrenity het volgende:

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http://www.gamespot.com/news/6146532.html

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 08:41 schreef King_of_cubes het volgende:

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Dus naast retro games ook kleine spelletjes? begrijp ik dat goed?

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 08:49 schreef Xrenity het volgende:

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Jep, Xbox Live Arcade achtig

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March 23, 2006 - IGN Revolution has learned that Activision will publish a version of Spider-Man 3 built specifically for Nintendo's next generation console, still codenamed Revolution. The game will make use of the system's innovative new controller to manipulate Spidey through the virtual universe. Specific details in this regard were not provided, but IGN speculates that the freestyle unit could be utilized to aim and cast webs, which would in turn accurately guide the hero about the city environments he explores.


Activision has formally announced that it is planning to have at least one Revolution title ready during the first four months of the system's launch. However, IGN believes that the publisher's launch game is unrelated to the Spider-Man franchise.
Further details about this project, and others, are expected to be made known at the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2006, which kicks off this May in Los Angeles.

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Also, been hearing some reports that HAL's Kirby title is now Revolution bound, but haven't been able to validate through multiple sources yet. Could be a load of hot air, but since I'm not going to write it up as news, I figured I'd at least drop it in here as rumor

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 08:49 schreef Xrenity het volgende:

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Jep, Xbox Live Arcade achtig

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Op donderdag 23 maart 2006 21:54 schreef MMaRsu het volgende:
Ik ben echt niet teleurgesteld, Genesis games downloaden maakt het voor mij allemaal goed . Ik had vroeger geen snes maar een Genesis, nou damn daar heb ik ook fucking veel uur plezier aan beleefd

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 10:18 schreef alex4allofyou het volgende:
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Ik snapte nooit in die 16bit tijd waarom mensen een genesis haalden ipv een snes. Ik vond de graphics/ mechanics altijd achterlopen op de snes. Kan me nog herinnneren dat ik helemaal gek werd toen ik hoorde dat iemand het verschil tussen Mortal Kombat en Streetfighter tussen SNES en Genesis niet zag.

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IGN: Don't take this the wrong way because we're happy. But why unveil Zelda: Phantom Hourglass at GDC and not E3?

Beth Llewelyn: We just thought it'd be fun. We wanted to give you guys a little taste of what you'll see more of at E3. We thought you'd appreciate it. It's a game we're working on and we certainly wanted to start talking about it.

IGN: Right. But it seems to us that Nintendo traditionally holds its big guns until E3. However, you're already giving us a major Zelda game at GDC. So what does that say about your E3 presence?

Beth: Nothing. We'll have nothing to show there [laughs].

IGN: Give us a little more than that!

Beth: I think you're going to be very excited with E3. There'll be a lot to talk about at E3. Certainly Revolution will have a big presence there. We'll be saying a lot more about that. And DS will have a huge presence. I think you'll be very pleasantly surprised and have a good time.

IGN: Lots of beautiful DS Lites at your GDC booth. But you didn't mention anything about a US launch of the handheld at GDC.

Beth: We haven't talked about the launch date. It will be coming to the US. It will become a global product. But we just haven't said specifically when you'll be seeing it here. You will, though.

IGN: When do you think we'll be hearing around the release date in the US?

Beth: You know, that's a tough one to say right now, but soon.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 10:25 schreef disjfa het volgende:

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Je was toen al een graphics hoer

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De Genesis was krachtiger afaik...

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 13:06 schreef Kill_em_all het volgende:
Als je het mij vraagt verschilt de markt van de psp en ds koper vrij veel. Nintendo raakt dus niet direct marktaandeel kwijt, het is meer dat de markt groter is geworden door de psp. Denk niet dat nintendo snel met een soort gba2 zal komen, de DS verkoopt gewoon goed dus er is geen reden om nu met nog een nieuw product te komen.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 14:06 schreef Erwtensoep het volgende:
En hoe kun je dat zien?

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 14:08 schreef MMaRsu het volgende:
Volgens mij komt dat wel goed

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 14:12 schreef Quack_of_Doom het volgende:

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nou moet ik eerlijk zeggen dat het niet mijn vakgebied is, maar ikzelf vond het er nog best fragiel uitzien.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 13:55 schreef disjfa het volgende:
alex4allofyou, waar haal je al die info vandaan? Heb je bewijzen of cijvers die dat aantonen of zuig je het geheel uit je grote duim? Die lappen text van jou zien er leuk uit maar je onderbouwd nooit wat.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 14:42 schreef alex4allofyou het volgende:
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Waar haal jij de bewering vandaan dat ik zeg dat het een feit is?!?

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 13:47 schreef alex4allofyou het volgende:

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Ja, maar je vergeet dat de PSP de markt van de Gameboy opslokt. Ze verliezen dus wel degelijk marktaandeel op een specifieke markt. Een economisch principe is dat je het goede dat je hebt indien rendabel zal moeten blijven continueren, als je portomonaie je lief is iig.

Ik geloof niet dat de markt echt groter is geworden door de PSP. De PSP vult de vervaningsvraag op die de Gameboy achter heeft gelaten. De DS heeft er ECHT voor gezorgd dat de markt groter is geworden door in een nieuwe vraag te voorzien.

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Let maar op, hij komt, Nintendo heeft met Iwata een goede. Enne, snel is relatief in deze markt. Nintendo wacht gewoon tot de hardware goedkoop genoeg is om concurrerend, duurzaam & interessant genoeg is. Het is echt ondenkbaar dat ze de Gameboy brand laten verzwakken door de opmars van de PSP.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 15:16 schreef Erwtensoep het volgende:
Ik vraag het me af eerlijk gezegd, de conferentie is toch in Amerika, en er staan Aziatische tekens naast

Of maak ik nu een hele domme opmerking?

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Later op de dag lekte een sheet van de presentatie uit, waarop het logo van Nintendo Go is te zien. Het is niet bekend wat Go precies inhoudt, maar volgens geruchten zou het de uiteindelijke naam van de Revolution zijn of de nieuwe naam van het online netwerk Wi-Fi Connect.

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 15:46 schreef Dj_Day-V het volgende:
Filmpje van Rev dichtbij:

http://www.ngcfrance.com/news.php?operande=0&idx=4841&r=1

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Op vrijdag 24 maart 2006 15:14 schreef RaymanNL het volgende:
[afbeelding]

Is gister uitgelekt op de conferentie ofzo Kan de officiele naam zijn van de Revo, of een nieuwe naam voor NWFC

bron: Tweakers