A picture of Nintendo President/CEO Satoru Iwata.
Satoru Iwata (the CEO and President of Nintendo) recently had an interview with the magazine "The Asahi Shimbun," in which he discussed the future of Nintendo gaming. In the interview, Iwata talked about upcoming releases, and looked to the future of innovation.
Iwata talked about the next Nintendo handheld, saying that "requirements for the [next Nintendo handheld] will be higher resolution screens and sensors that will be able to read the player’s movement." Coming from the President of Nintendo, this is big news, because he just gave us a general direction of what Nintendo’s handheld future will look like. No other details were said about the mysterious new handheld, because Iwata said "Being that the DS just broke sales records in the US, a launch date for its successor is not something to talk about."
During the interview, Iwata also touched on some subjects, such as how Iwata wants to deliver content to players through cellular networks. He has a vision that this will be similar to the iPhone’s service, but for the DS. He spoke about his views on a cellular service, mentioning that he dislikes monthly payment systems, and that they will end up sticking with Wi-Fi to mainly handle their service. Nintendo is currently trying to find partners to help build Wi-Fi hubs around Japan, with hopes of increasing the amount of DS/DSi users that are connected to the internet.
Iwata then discussed more about specific games, revealing that the next Zelda title will be released before the end of 2010. This is great news for fans of the series who who were dissapointed about the next Zelda title being delayed again, because now we have an official time window as to when it will be released. Iwata also said that the first titles to utilize the Wii Vitality Sensor will release in July 2010.
Iwata also briefly talked about the Wii sales, saying that it has fallen since last fall, but it is still one of the most-selling consoles of all time. He also said that hardware is the most important thing in a gaming console.
With all of these great things happening in the Nintendo company at once, we can only look to the future in great hope, because the next year looks full of promise (and now that promise has been confirmed!)
I’m not buying Zelda Wii by end of 2010 they announce a release date. Even then I may be skeptical. Although, with TP already out, they really wouldn’t have had to change much of that system I would think. We’ll see.
"He also said that hardware is the most important thing in a gaming console."
I would not agree with him on this.