Nintendo Talking About a Revolution

The company's president reiterates how complexity is keeping games away from the common man.

While Sony and Microsoft are content with the 'bigger, faster, better' school of hardware progression, Nintendo seems to be on a completely different path altogether.

Nintendo will soon announce details on Revolution

Speaking to the Kyoto Shimbun this week, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that Revolution - Nintendo's codename for the in-development successor to the GameCube - represents a "paradigm shift" for the company.

According to Iwata, complexity is the main barrier to ordinary people picking up a video game controller. The Nintendo DS, with its twin screens and touch-screen capabilities, was part of Nintendo's response to this - with the new control types levelling the field so that hardcore gamers and non-gamers alike would have to, effectively, learn how to play games again.

Nintendo has previously said that Revolution would continue this trend, alluding to a radical change in how its games are presented. There has even been talk that Revolution won't use normal controllers, but would instead rely on a variety of novel gameplay devices.

Iwata described Cube's successor as a "paradigm shift"

All of this is the reaction of a Japanese company struggling with its identity and a falling market share. Although there are now more gamers in Japan than before, traditional console gaming is on the decline, with more people choosing to play games on the high-power mobile phones commonplace in Japan.

Nintendo has seen its near-monopolistic market share during the NES days in the mid-1980s dwindle to around 20 per cent with the GameCube. Microsoft has swallowed most of Nintendo's lost market share in North America and Europe, though Microsoft faces resistance from Japanese gamers.

Quite how Nintendo will use Revolution to usher in a new age for the company will soon be revealed. The company has confirmed that Nintendo Revolution will be showcased at this year's E3, which takes place in Los Angeles in May.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games