Not only is Nintendo's Revolution now promised to ship before Thanksgiving in North America, but according to Reggie Fils-Aime, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo of America, the next-gen console will come with a price tag of less than $300â€â€something that Nintendo President Satoru Iwata hinted at earlier this month in speaking with Yahoo! Japan.
In an interview with News.com, the marketing exec talked about Nintendo's "New Year's Resolutions," the Revolution, the DS and the competition.
Keeping the mass in mass audience
"The first [resolution] is keeping our eyes on the prize. This industry is about entertainment, and in the end, he with the best games wins. So at Nintendo, we're focused on putting the most entertaining products into the marketplace. The second resolution is keeping the mass in the mass audience. The world is fragmenting all around us, and many companies are making their products too exclusive and expensive for the general consumer."
"For example, for American consumers to get into the Xbox 360 franchise, with games and extra controllers, they had to spend more than $700, not including an HDTV, which is really the only way to positively experience 360. We resolve at Nintendo to remain within reach for the vast majority of our consumers," said Fils-Aime.
Combining the first two resolutions with the third, which is "to stop turning away new players," Nintendo is committed to making its next-gen console affordable to the average consumer at under $300. How much less than $300 it will be is not yet clear.
Affordable for developers
Just as Nintendo is aiming to make its system more affordable for consumers, the company also intends to make it a less costly proposition for developers to create games for it. Reggie envisions game development as a "democracy of great ideas."
"[Our fourth resolution] is to turn game development into a democracy of great ideas. Just as the cost of systems seems to be getting out of reach for everyday consumers, the cost of game development is getting out of reach for game publishers. The Revolution will be more affordable for game developers to create for, and that will result in fantastically innovative content," he said.
And the fifth resolution is a familiar one from Nintendo: to improve the way consumers play games. Reggie calls the constant expectation of improved graphics and processing power a "mythical performance vector for this industry." Nintendo believes that through the DS it's changing the way people play and will continue to do so with the Revolution (which is still only a codename for the console).
Very confident
Reggie also had some tough words for the competition. "The DS is outselling PSP across the world. The DS is also generating huge buzz in the blogosphere. The fact is, we have a number of not only worldwide but even U.S.-centric million-unit selling games, and Sony doesn't," he boasted. "The buzz for the DS is huge and growing, and the most anticipated handheld titles are on our platform, not on Sony's."
As for Microsoft, Reggie predicted that Nintendo would top the Xbox 360 launch on a comparative basis, when the Revolution goes on sale. "We will sell more units than Xbox 360 did here in the United States in our launch window. I mean, in December, we sold more GameCubes in the United States than Microsoft sold 360s, and Revolution will do better than that," he said.
In an interview with News.com, the marketing exec talked about Nintendo's "New Year's Resolutions," the Revolution, the DS and the competition.
Keeping the mass in mass audience
"The first [resolution] is keeping our eyes on the prize. This industry is about entertainment, and in the end, he with the best games wins. So at Nintendo, we're focused on putting the most entertaining products into the marketplace. The second resolution is keeping the mass in the mass audience. The world is fragmenting all around us, and many companies are making their products too exclusive and expensive for the general consumer."
"For example, for American consumers to get into the Xbox 360 franchise, with games and extra controllers, they had to spend more than $700, not including an HDTV, which is really the only way to positively experience 360. We resolve at Nintendo to remain within reach for the vast majority of our consumers," said Fils-Aime.
Combining the first two resolutions with the third, which is "to stop turning away new players," Nintendo is committed to making its next-gen console affordable to the average consumer at under $300. How much less than $300 it will be is not yet clear.
Affordable for developers
Just as Nintendo is aiming to make its system more affordable for consumers, the company also intends to make it a less costly proposition for developers to create games for it. Reggie envisions game development as a "democracy of great ideas."
"[Our fourth resolution] is to turn game development into a democracy of great ideas. Just as the cost of systems seems to be getting out of reach for everyday consumers, the cost of game development is getting out of reach for game publishers. The Revolution will be more affordable for game developers to create for, and that will result in fantastically innovative content," he said.
And the fifth resolution is a familiar one from Nintendo: to improve the way consumers play games. Reggie calls the constant expectation of improved graphics and processing power a "mythical performance vector for this industry." Nintendo believes that through the DS it's changing the way people play and will continue to do so with the Revolution (which is still only a codename for the console).
Very confident
Reggie also had some tough words for the competition. "The DS is outselling PSP across the world. The DS is also generating huge buzz in the blogosphere. The fact is, we have a number of not only worldwide but even U.S.-centric million-unit selling games, and Sony doesn't," he boasted. "The buzz for the DS is huge and growing, and the most anticipated handheld titles are on our platform, not on Sony's."
As for Microsoft, Reggie predicted that Nintendo would top the Xbox 360 launch on a comparative basis, when the Revolution goes on sale. "We will sell more units than Xbox 360 did here in the United States in our launch window. I mean, in December, we sold more GameCubes in the United States than Microsoft sold 360s, and Revolution will do better than that," he said.