George Harrison Talks Revolution

[Teasy]

Amid the loud roars and beating chests of Sony and Microsoft last week, you'd be forgiven for forgetting about Nintendo completely.

Nintendo - the once dominating force of videogames - sat quietly in the corner, all alone and looking at its watch every five minutes, while its rivals danced and cheered the night away, full of satisfaction and optimism.

But Nintendo hasn't given up. The lack of any next-gen gameplay footage and the omission of the 'revolutionary' controller at the pre-E3 Nintendo conference may have been a disappointment, but Nintendo does have a plan up its sleeve.

In a recent interview with US website GameSpot, Nintendo of America vice president George Harrison answered some burning questions, finally giving some kind of clue as to how Nintendo plans to play this generation.

Beginning by referring to Nintendo's next-gen chances, Harrison confidently claimed, "Revolution will have no real problem standing up to PS3 and Xbox 360" keenly pointing out that, while Sony and Microsoft have laid their cards on the table, Nintendo is yet to actually reveal its final specs, regardless of what has been said by the press.

Harrison then explained that getting developers on board is key to the Revolution strategy, and Nintendo is working hard to ensure Revolution is both easy and cheap to develop for.

As far as what makes the console revolutionary, Harrison was coy regarding the controller, instead focusing on Nintendo's online plans and downloadable games service.

"People sort of picked on us for not prematurely jumping into online or internet gaming," he mused, going on to point out that now the company has more to offer besides online gaming. Harrison then confirmed that past-gen, Nintendo-created titles will indeed be downloadable for free.

This is a clever move by Nintendo: regardless of the final power of Revolution and the frequency of new titles, Nintendo knows that its loyal fans will cry tears of joy over a free service that lets them download previous Nintendo classics straight out of the box.

Third-party developers could charge for the privilege to download though. Or, alternatively, they could offer downloadable classics as an incentive to buy their next-gen full price releases. Either way, classic Nintendo titles such as Castlevania and MegaMan may not be immediately accessible.

A similar model applies to online gaming. Playing Nintendo titles across the internet will be free, whereas third-party publishers will be able to charge whatever subscription rates they wish.

Still, with a massive back-catalogue of titles and some key franchises that gamers have been wanting to play online for some time - Mario Kart, to name but one - it's unlikely the occasional fee for a third-party offering will spoil Nintendo's idea too much.

Nintendo Revolution is due to be launched in 2006

Glad to hear a further comment from Nintendo that Revolution will be a powerful console.

I'm not sure about the free classic games comment though. Since I don't actually see a quote about it from Mr Harrison. So perhaps the article writer just confused the online service being free with the game downloads being free? Though if they really are free that'll be an amazing feature IMO

Source: http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=36071&subsectionid=1587

 

[zurich]

"...downloadable games for free"

Meaning the service is free, the games are not

 

[twotonfld]

It's good news that there's beginning to be 3rd party downloadable games mentioned in these articles. I want my TNMT2, Castlevania 2, Baseball Stars and many others on my TV and on a system that I no longer have to blow in.

 

[Teasy]

Meaning the service is free, the games are not

Its pretty clear that the article writer believes that the games will actually be free. Wether he made a mistake or not is the only question. Because they're is no direct quote about it in the article.

 

[London Geezer]

I thought Geroge Harrison was dead.

 

[Teasy]

I almost said in my first post "no dead beatles jokes please.."

 

[Hilo]

This talk of free games is all well and good, but will Nintendo really foot the bill for all of that bandwidth? I mean, we're talking potentially millions of people downloading everything they can; whether or not they actually plan to play the games. Nintendo's servers will get positively hammered if they don't limit it somehow and allow anyone with a Revolution and an internet connection carte blanche to dl anything and everything on the menu.

 

[PC-Engine]

I'm pretty sure there will be limits of some sort.

 

[Kalin]

They control the client side of things, so a simple transparent torrent-like p2p solution would be more than enough to handle virtually unlimited traffic.

 

[N00b]

You have to consider that N64, SNES and NES games are tiny by today's standards. I guess that most N64 games are just 4-8 MB, very few if any are above 32 MB. And I don't think you will be able to download GC games (at least not for the next 2-3 years).

 

[Acert93]

I had thought when they announced downloadable games how, "If they do their 1st party N64, SNES, and NES games for free they will put them right into competition with Sony".

The N64 had some killer games by even todays standards in gameplay (fast, fun, quick to pick up) and if they got those to run with better filters at a higher resolution WOOT! I remember playing ZOoT on my Voodoo II (only game I have ever emulated). I loved the N64 version, but boy did it look HOT on the PC!

I know a lot of gamers who either love Nintendos old games or are retro gamers. And getting stuff like Dr. Mario, Tetris, etc... for free would really open the door to more casual gamers (like moms).

I am sure a lot of gamers would get a Revolution along with other platforms just to play the old games.

Cannot wait to know the truth behind how Nintendo will handle this.

 

[twotonfld]

I had thought when they announced downloadable games how, "If they do their 1st party N64, SNES, and NES games for free they will put them right into competition with Sony".

Not to mention that they'd get my fiancee to start playing videogames again (other than the Sims that is)

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's a VERY niche idea. It will endear Nintendo in the hearts of hardcore gamers, but I don't think it will figure much into the interests of casual gamers. Although it might matter to wives, gfs, and daughters.

 

[speng]

It's a VERY niche idea. It will endear Nintendo in the hearts of hardcore gamers, but I don't think it will figure much into the interests of casual gamers. Although it might matter to wives, gfs, and daughters.

I think it's a great idea. For that reason alone, I will be buying the Revolution. You would be surprised at how many people will buy the system, especially 2 years after it has been released and fall under the $150 price tag.

If it ever gets below the $99 price tag it will interest casual gamers who grew up playing Nintendo games and want to reminisce.

Speng.

 

[Acert93]

It's a VERY niche idea. It will endear Nintendo in the hearts of hardcore gamers, but I don't think it will figure much into the interests of casual gamers. Although it might matter to wives, gfs, and daughters.

Wives, gfs, daughters, etc... AKA the female gender. That is, 50% of the population

That is really an untapped market. Moms are one of the biggest gaming demographics, that is one reason MS is offering card games with Xbox Live. While it may not appeal to hard core gamers, the "casual gamer" is a HUGE demographic, the largest. And many of these gamers like these types of games.

So from a sales perspective it is much bigger than JUST Nintendo fans, but to an entire legion of game-fans in general. Current gen consoles did not ship with a lot of cheap, fast to pick up, games like Tetris and Dr. Mario.

My move LOVES Dr. Mario and Tetris and Majong (however it is spelled). Scrabble, crosswords, etc... are her thing. She gets online to play these. So while they are not what we typically think of gamers, they indeed are an untapped consumer market that could really increase an install base significantly.

Actually, as much as I like FPS, I would say they are really a niche market. Same with most other games (RTS, Fighting Games, Wrestling Games, Sports Games, Platformers, Racers). Some are bigger than others, but those genres have all done well with hardcore gamers--but they do not necessarily appeal to all casual gamers--especially female gamers.

Honestly, I believe most games are very testosterone driven and offend many girls sensabilities. While Nintendo's back cataloge is NOT a fix all solution, many of the older fun/simple games are a step in the right direction. And just from the people I have talked to who are casual gamers, they really like the idea a LOT. They see *value* in it, and I know my wife and mother like the idea of playing some of the fun, non-hormonal male oriented, games.

 

[Nexiss]

Indeed, this is sounding better and better with free games. I don't see "niche market" in this at all, it could appeal to quite a range of people.
I think someone mentioned "why should we care when we already have emulators" in another thread around e3 time. IMO that is just looking at it, again, from a hardcore gamer or even just a "regular" gamers perspective. How many casual/"nongamers" out there are going to be downloading and configuring emulators, looking for ROMS and that sort of thing? Especially when it is illegal in the first place. And even from a gamers perspective, I know that for myself it is an easy choice of downloading Mario 64 and running it on an emulator on my PC (free) versus doing it legally on my Revolution (free).

 

[Evil_Cloud]

I had thought when they announced downloadable games how, "If they do their 1st party N64, SNES, and NES games for free they will put them right into competition with Sony".

Not to mention that they'd get my fiancee to start playing videogames again (other than the Sims that is)

Heh, being able to play American or Japanese titles like Super Mario RPG for SNES, Advance Wars for NES/SNES, Marvelous: Treasure Island for SNES, Ogre Wars 64, Fire Emblem, Breath of Fire,... would be enough for me to buy a Revolution console, two even.

If that's not possible, then I hope it will be possible to download American or Japanese games using a Revolution console from another region. But how hard would it be to make it possible to download games from other regions?

 

[hey69]

you just buy a modded xbox and you can play al those retro nintendogames up to nintendo64
and playstation
and mame
and and so forth...

 

[Evil_Cloud]

you just buy a modded xbox and you can play al those retro nintendogames up to nintendo64
and playstation
and mame
and and so forth...

I'd rather play games legally, with 100% optimized emulators/hardware.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

you just buy a modded xbox and you can play al those retro nintendogames up to nintendo64
and playstation
and mame
and and so forth...

Assuming you don't want a Revolution, and assuming casuals know about emulators and modded Xbox.