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Peter Main talks about the Future

A lot has been said lately about Nintendo. Some are saying that the Nintendo 64 is finished. Some are saying that the Dolphin will not be here soon enough to save Nintendo from the wrath of Sony and Sega. Some are saying that without Pokémon, they wouldn't even still be here today. The guys at Nintendo aren't listening. Instead, they are working. Yesterday, Peter Main, the executive vice president of sales and marketing for Nintendo, announced many of the things that Nintendo has been working on.

First of all, Main informed us that within the next two weeks, there will be an official announcement regarding the Dolphin. He did not divulge what the announcement would be, but speculation is that Nintendo will show most of their cards and reveal the mysterious system, along with the price and specs. This announcement will come just barely a month before the Japanese release of the PlayStation 2, and is sure to take away some of Sony's momentum.

Another announcement pertained to the Game Boy Advance. Main shocked several experts who believed that the system would be held til a 2001 release in North America by announcing that it would be released in November, just two months after the Japanese release. The system, which is now rumored to be even more powerful than the Sega Saturn, was also rumored to have a Pokemon launch title in Japan, which would be a very intelligent move on Nintendo's part. However, the North American launch of Pokemon Silver and Gold will be this fall as well, and Nintendo will most likely not want the franchise to compete with itself. Nintendo intends to release over one million of the systems in the 2001 fiscal year. Expect an announcement of the specs and price either at the same time as the Dolphin announcement, or sometime in the near future. Also expect for both systems to be in full force, including playable titles, at the upcoming E3 in Los Angeles.

Christmas wasn't over for those awaiting other tidbits of information, as several game announcements were made. Pikachu Genki Dechu, the Japanese Pokémon game where you raise a Pikachu and command it to do certain tasks, was recently announced for a North American release. Now we know that the game is coming as "Pikachu VRS" and will released in the Holiday season of 2000. Nintendo also announced a new puzzle game for Game Boy Color called "Pokémon Attack," and the game will be similar to the highly-acclaimed Super Nintendo game Tetris Attack.

Another game announcement had to do with the GBC Zelda Trilogy that's in development by Nintendo and Flagship. He confirmed that Zelda: The Mysterious Acorn Trilogy would indeed be released here. The first game in the series, the Tale of Power, will come out in late summer. The next game, the Tale of Wisdom, would come out about six weeks later, then the Tale of Courage would come out another six weeks after that. All three titles will be out in time for Christmas.

Nintendo still seems very optimistic about the future, and looks to increase it's share of the console market and not lose a bit of it's firm control of the portable market. Keep watching here for the upcoming announcement from Nintendo about their upcoming console, the Dolphin. You never know what these guys have up their sleeves.


by Doug "Stom" Hill    
Source: [Videogames.com/IGN]
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