Nintendo Discusses DS, Famicom Mini, Next-Gen Consoles

In an extended interview with Japanese game consumer site ITmedia, Nintendo PR head Ken Toyota has spoken out on a number of topics of major concern to the hardware and software developer in the coming year. Foremost was the subject of Nintendo's successor to the GameCube console, currently codenamed "Revolution." "E3 will be the starting point for the Revolution," Toyota said. The company has currently not decided how much they plan to give away at the May 2005 trade show, but they are "thinking of how we can accurately convey to people at E3 the different path that the Revolution will take and how it will change the way that games will be enjoyed." Regarding the Nintendo DS, launched in the U.S. in November 2004, Toyota shared some information on the handheld's growth and expectations. Nintendo maintains its expectation to sell 6 million units in 2005, but has scaled back game sales estimates from 15 million units to 10 million, explaining that the previous estimates were based on the hardware-to-software sales ratio of the Game Boy Advance. Software sales for the GBA itself remain high, however: Toyota mentioned that the Famicom Mini series, a line of perfect ports of classic 8-bit games, has sold around 7.21 million copies since the series' inception. Nintendo's second wave of NES Classic games, which is the American version of the Famicom Mini series, came out during the holiday season, and a third North American wave is rumored to be on the horizon.