Nintendo Co, the Japanese video game maker that created Super Mario and Pokemon, brushed off the technological superiority of rivals Sony and Microsoft yesterday in an emerging three-way war in next-generation home consoles.
President Satoru Iwata said Nintendo's Revolution, expected to go on sale next year, can compete against the more advanced offerings -- Sony Corp's PlayStation 3, set to hit stores next spring, and Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360, expected later this year -- because the era of creating powerful machines to attract sales is long over.
The Japanese game market has stagnated as people tire of increasingly complex games with more dazzling graphics, he said at a Tokyo hotel briefing for reporters and investors.
Kyoto-based Nintendo Co Ltd. has tried to expand the game-playing population, he said, by producing new kinds of machines, such as the hand-held Nintendo DS, which has a touch-panel, and new kinds of games that don't rely on increasingly sophisticated computer functions and graphics.
People who generally aren't hard-core gamers, including women and the elderly, are having fun with "Nintendogs," a Nintendo DS game that allows players to interact with a puppy, Iwata said. It went on sale in Japan in April, and is set to go on sale in the US in August.
More than 5.6 million Nintendo DS machines have sold worldwide since their introduction about a half year ago.
Iwata noted the game market is still expanding in the US, unlike the troubled Japanese market. However, he warned some disturbing signs are emerging there that indicate the industry there may be headed toward difficulty.
The gap between games that sell and games that don't sell is growing in the US, and many people are wondering why games look alike, falling into the same categories such as action, sports and movie-inspired, Iwata said.
Nintendo is taking a different strategy through Revolution, which is expected to be less powerful than its competitors. It will blend more easily in the living room because it's only about the size of three DVD cases and has a wireless remote controller, Iwata said.
"Nintendo wants more people to re-experience the fun of games," he said. "We see that as Nintendo's mission."
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China is mischaracterizing UN Resolution 2758 for its own interests by conflating it with its “one China” principle, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert said on Monday. Speaking at a seminar held by the German Marshall Fund, Lambert called for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community at a time when China is increasingly misusing Resolution 2758. The resolution had a clear impact when it changed who occupied the China seat at the UN, Lambert said. “Today, however, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] increasingly mischaracterizes and misuses Resolution 2758 to serve its own interests,” Lambert said. “Beijing