Nintendo Says No to Global Revolution

Just because everyone else is jumping off the cliff, doesn't mean Nintendo is going to.

Global launches are all the rage these days, it seems, after Sony revealed that, like Microsoft did with Xbox 360, it will attempt a simultaneous worldwide release of the PlayStation 3 later this year. Don't count Nintendo in that group just yet though.

Keeping with his company's mantra of bucking trends, Satoru Iwata said last week that Nintendo would not ape its rivals by launch the Revolution simultaneously without reason.

"We don't think it's necessary to do the simultaneous worldwide launch simply because others are doing this," Iwata told news service Bloomberg at last week's Game Developers Conference, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz.

There was talk last year that Nintendo could try to release the Revolution in all three major regions at around the same time but these latest comments suggest the company is learning from Microsoft's missteps. Nintendo has also had production problems of its own with the DS - and now the recently released DS Lite - proving especially hard to get hold of in Japan.

"I'm hopeful in the latter half of April we can get rid of the terrible, terrible shortage situation that we are facing with the Nintendo DS right now," Iwata reportedly said.

Solving this is vital to Nintendo, which is seeing off Sony's PSP challenge with ease in Japan but is facing more of an even challenge outside the country.

Iwata will be on Nintendo's stage again later this spring at the company's conference at E3. Many observers expect Nintendo to dole out pricing and release date specifics and also unveil the final version of the Revolution hardware and its Virtual Console retro-gaming software.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games