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8am this morning, at Mann’s Chinese Theatre in
Hollywood
, Nintendo began the press conference that many had noted as being
make-or-break for the industry’s grandfather. The new hardware,
including both the Nintendo Revolution – the successor to the
GameCube – and the next instalment in the Game Boy series being
top of most of the attendees lists. What follows are the full
details of Nintendo’s announcements and unveilings, and a
suggestion as to exactly what this means for the gaming
giant.
To begin with, the NintendoDS was top of Nintendo’s
pecking order, reassuring the previous announcements and common
belief for completely free online play. “As far as
Nintendo is concerned they [gamers] will not face any added charges
at all” claimed Reggie-Fils Aime, while the company once again
utilised Mario KartDS and NintenDOGS to demonstrate
the service, claiming an expected 90% uptake from DS users.
 Following
the rehash of previous NintendoDS announcements came something
altogether new. “I know you haven’t seen this” Reggie stated,
as he pulled the Game Boy Micro from inside his jacket pocket.
Compatible with all Game Boy Advance games, the Game Boy
Micro ranks-in at only 4” wide by 2” long, and less than 1”
thick. With changeable face-plates and a sleek appearance, the Game
Boy just got even more stylish.
Before bringing us the much-touted
new Legend Of Zelda trailer, Satoru Iwata took to the stage
to unveil Nintendo’s next artillery in the home console war.
Leaked earlier this morning to USA Today, much like the Xbox360
here at Electronic Theatre, the press conference actually 
offered little we didn’t already know about the system. Acting as
a Wi-Fi Router, wireless as standard and fully backwards compatible
with the GameCube, the Nintendo Revolution will also offer the
ability to download existing Nintendo games – from Nintendo
Entertainment System (NES) games right through to Nintendo64 titles
– to the 512Mb internal FLASH memory, and will also
include a FLASH Memory Card adapter for additional storage.
While looking very, very stylish, the proposal of having to buy a
self-contained adapter in order to play DVDs is, in my opinion,
very short-sighted.
After the Revolution’s confirmation, George Harrison took
to the stage to show this years upcoming GameCube titles and, while
there were no particular surprises, the new Legend Of
Zelda trailer was nothing short of stunning. Including the
ability to morph into a wolf, the full title was announced; The
Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
You may have been reading this article thinking that, with
all Nintendo had promised, the press conference was a little
lack-lustre. Well, you may be right. While the Game Boy Micro
no-doubt has a place in the market, I can’t help but feel that
the principle of the system is far greater than the technology
offered, and the Revolution must now be playable at E3 in
order to steal any of SONY and Microsoft’s’ thunder and get the
industry press buzzing about the system. Showing us the box is
great, but we still need to know what it does as opposed to what it
offers – why is it a Revolution?
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