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July 25, 2005 - In a recent interview with EGM, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto commented on the upcoming successor to the GameCube, codenamed Revolution, and offered a few details on Mario 128 and the future of Nintendo in general.



To start though, Iwata faced a series of questions focused on Nintendo's philosophy on game design, which sometimes places innovation above technological pizzazz. With the next-generation of videogame consoles on the horizon, longtime Nintendo fans worry the Nintendo Revolution simply won't compete with Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PS3 on a graphical level.

"I don't think the Revolution's [graphics] will be inferior in any fashion to Xbox 360 or PS3," said Iwata. "Even if you look at Zelda on GameCube, I don't think that looks inferior to what the competition is touting as 'next generation' visuals. But we think there are more important things for now than making the system work with a high-definition television."

Iwata went on to say that most people who will be playing the Nintendo Revolution won't be doing so on high-definition compatible television sets anyway, and that 480p (progressive-scan) will remain the standard. Bottom line, according to Iwata, is Nintendo's desire to create a system capable of attracting as many people as possible. On the same note, Iwata said Nintendo had no desire to make people pay extra out of the box for the Revolution's DVD functionality, since most people already own one or more DVD players. He also reiterated that the DVD player will be built-in and not an external attachment. At E3 2005, the company confirmed that an additionally purchased dongle would activate the built-in DVD functionality.

As far as the Revolution's Internet connectivity is concerned, the system will be Wi-Fi compatible out of the box but won't come with an Ethernet port. Instead, Nintendo will sell an Ethernet adaptor for the Revolution's USB port. Iwata said it would be difficult, given where the Revolution will be in a household [probably the living room] for players to connect the Revolution to a traditional Ethernet line.

Moving from hardware to software, Miyamoto said Nintendo is considering a DS version of the classic brawler Super Smash Bros. He also said that he'd like to make another Luigi's Mansion game and that a Pikmin game on Revolution would be a "good match" given the Revolution's unique and totally mysterious controller. But he said nothing about Pikmin Revolution was set in stone. Miyamoto also said that if it's technically possible on Revolution, then tweaking older games such as Mario Party for online play was a definite possibility.

Finally, Iwata spoke on the Revolution's unique interface and if it would alienate third-party developers.

"Well, of course, the idea is that the Revolution will sell and sell and sell so it becomes the standard in the industry," Iwata mused. "However, at least for the launch period, we designed the controller so it can play any of the different conventional styles. After all, we are talking about it playing games from our past machines (i.e. the virtual console). So don't worry."

quote RikkuLover

The new SSB is going to be awesome.