Malik  (6/9/04)

Something "Revolution"-ary From Nintendo

Nintendo has announced some more sketchy minor details of their next system; code-named "Revolution".  While the details are being closely guarded in fear of competitors stealing some of the ideas, it was said that;

...a prototype, which will be shown next year, will deliver "new ideas" for entertainment and won't be merely a more powerful version of its current Game Cube machine.

Also Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that;

"What we need is not a next-generation machine but a next-generation way of playing games...We need to propose a new idea so that the game industry can overcome its current crisis."

That crisis being the loss of sales in Japan for video games and the slowing pace of increased sales in the US.  While this doesn't really say much in terms of the actual abilities of the next Nintendo system, it does say that Nintendo will be likely to try to incorporate some current technology in new methods, like the use of two screens and a touch-screen found in the upcoming DS.

Personally, I'm glad that Nintendo is trying to do something more than just add technical flair to their next project, like Sony has been trying with the "Cell" chip.  However, I just hope Nintendo doesn't pull a Virtual Boy with this whole venture.  Nintendo has been famous for trying to re-invent something as straight forward as the video game console with such innovative measures before, and it almost always leads to disaster.  For more on this Nintendo news, check out Friday's issue of Malik's Bitchings.

Malik