Revolution
THE HYPE: If we're all being honest with ourselves here, brand loyalty has played a major role in the hype for Nintendo's previous two consoles. Besides the always-anticipated first-party game lineup that a new Nintendo system never fails to bring to the table, the Nintendo 64 and GameCube didn't have a lot to differentiate themselves from their contemporaries. Hair-splitting debates about load times and antialiasing aside, both were just another videogame system with a familiar logo slapped on top.
This is not the case with the Revolution. The anticipation for the console is pretty much entirely centered around its controller and what the gyroscopic-position-sensing, one-hand nunchaku is going to do for game design. Nintendo is being even more tight-lipped than usual on this -- not a single Revolution game has been shown off thus far, and we won't see anything until E3. This hasn't stopped the hardcore gamers from coming up with all kinds of speculation. Even the Sony and Xbox loyalists with no designs on buying a Revolution know, in some tiny corner of their black hearts, that they can't wait to see what Nintendo shows at E3.
Even so, the hype for Revolution really hasn't trickled down to the general public. The Xbox 360 launch garnered easily the most mainstream coverage of any game hardware debut ever, and even those who don't know much about the industry know that the PlayStation 3 is coming this year. But the mainstream consumer doesn't really know what Nintendo is planning. There is, however, a snowballing amount of hype among developers, who are fascinated by the controller and ready to make some new games that use it in what they hope will be unique and profitable ways.
[Satoru Iwata debuted the Revolution by pulling one out of his jacket pocket.]
THE MACHINE: When kids begged and whined for a brand-new Nintendo Entertainment System 20 years ago, they stood a far better chance of getting Mom and Dad to pony up. That was because the whole shebang -- the console, two controllers, and Super Mario Bros. -- sold for a hundred bucks. How times have changed. Today, Microsoft's Core Pack is touted as the budget-priced option at three times the sticker shock. And, while the MSRP of the PlayStation 3 won't be, in all likelihood, as costly as some predict, it won't exactly be undercutting the 360 either.
Enter Nintendo. The company has taken tremendous heat from fans and detractors alike over its decisions, both official and rumored, over the internals of the Revolution. Nintendo went on the record at E3 as saying that the console wouldn't support high-def resolution. The company wouldn't reveal any further specs, but developers with early kits started telling their journo buddies that the console will probably only be a few times more powerful than the GameCube.
This led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. It's not unlike Nintendo to sacrifice extraneous features to keep the price low, but the conventional wisdom on Revolution was that Nintendo had taken itself out of the hardware race. However, this strategy might just be the thing that puts Nintendo back in the thick of things. Those same developers estimate that the Revolution's sticker price will certainly be under $199 -- and possibly even as low as $149 or (the admittedly unlikely) $99. Will gamers trade HD for an extra $200 in their pockets?
More importantly, will nongamers -- that elusive market segment Nintendo seems so intent on taking for its own -- get onboard? Certainly the success of the Nintendo DS among grannies and salarymen in Japan speaks to the fact that Nintendo is on their wavelength. It's not much of a leap to think that Revolution will be a hit in Japan. It's the rest of the world that, once again, proves to be the toughest battleground for Nintendo.
THE LAUNCH: Nintendo learned its lesson with the GameCube: Launch with a Mario title. The company took this for granted once, and it won't do that again. To Nintendo's credit, however, the GameCube launch really wasn't that bad. Sure, the day-one offerings of Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race weren't exciting. But two weeks later, Smash Bros. and Pikmin arrived. Given the unique capabilities of the controller and all that Nintendo has said over the past few years about lowering development costs, it's not unlikely that we'll see just as many first-party games for Revolution before the year ends.
And with the "Reggielution" in full swing, it's probable that we'll see more third-party support at launch from local developers. Love it or hate it, the U.S. launch of the Nintendo DS was packed with games specifically pointed at the Western audience: Spider-Man 2, Madden '05, Asphalt Urban GT.& OK, maybe some of these should never have been released, but here's the point: Nintendo can, if pressed into action, mobilize third-party publishers to have launch games readied. Hopefully, what it cooks up for Revolution will be on a higher plane of quality.
At any rate, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has told a Japanese newspaper that he sees the Thanksgiving holiday as being an important target to hit in the U.S. market, so we're probably assured that Revolution will be out by then. In stark contrast to Sony's usual method, the Japanese release may actually come slightly later, as with the Nintendo DS in 2004
