Shouldnât Nintendo be dissuading people from buying the Xbox 360 by convincing them to wait for the Revolution? IGN threw the question at George Harrison in todayâs Nintendo Minute on IGN Revolution.
From IGN: âGeorge Harrison, senior vice president, marketing and corporate communications, Nintendo of America: With so many new products being released each month, Nintendo must always be very strategic in deciding when to stir up buzz for a particular game or system. During this yearâs busy holiday season, it wouldnât make sense for us to get gamers excited about a console that they wonât be able to play until 2006.
Our focus right now is in generating excitement for our current heavy-hitting holiday line-up that includes Nintendoâs first-ever online gaming network in the U.S. with Mario Kart DS and Animal Crossing DS. This is huge for Nintendo and, as you know, the response has been outstanding, with nearly half of all Mario Kart DS owners already playing online. These online titles hit stores in time for the holidays, so it makes sense Nintendo is concentrating on them now while the market for them is hot.
However, once the holiday rush subsides, I think itâs safe to say that you can expect Nintendoâs attention to gradually shift toward its 2006 priorities. Revolution is clearly one of these priorities, and we expect to see gamers become even more excited for Nintendoâs next console in what they learn in the coming months.
So though competitive noise may be high right now, rest easy knowing that Revolution will soon have its day in the sun, and all eyes will shift toward it. â
This however is where we disagree with Nintendo. While they may only have so much left to disclose about the Revolution, it is thought that it would be more profitable to take some measures to dissuade people who are currently tempted to purchase an Xbox 360. This may not be so.
Nintendo has statistics on information release dates and over all consumer response when amidst competition (as do all 3 companies, which help them to base their decisions). Perhaps with the lower cost of the Revolution and the alleged fun factor Nintendo can profit more by delaying the next hurdle of big Revolution news. Or if you want to look at it backwards, it may be less beneficial for them to release news now as it will leave them with less cards to play later. Who knows. I guess weâll see. -TE
