Tuesday, June 9, 2009

What's Next for Nintendo?

I'm not known as a video game expert. I grew up on Atari and Nintendo and since the mid-90s have only occasionally played Crash Bandicoot on other people's PlayStations. But even though sales are down the gaming industry is weathering the recession well, and it's long made more money than films, for instance. So here are some recent items about the future of the industry, specifically an interview with Nintendo's COO Reggie Fils-Aime. It was conducted by Daniel Terdiman and was published in CNET News last Friday. There's a lot of material of Fils-Aime's predictions for the future of the entire industry, not just Nintendo. 

Also, today the Times (that's the UK one, not the New York Times) ran an interview with CEO Satoru Iwata. 

Fils-Aime's talk of future gaming systems got me thinking about the next generation of PlayStation, so after an admittedly cursory search the best thing I found was a short notice from GamePro saying not to expect it until next year, although that is evidently sooner than some analysts had thought.

Finally, a bit of news about that former Most Recognizable Face of Nintendo (at least to former Nintendo Power readers like myself):



Yes, it's Howard Phillips of "Howard and Nestor" fame. (Yes, that is Nestor's eyeball in the corner--I still think of him every time I can't find my keys. For those who don't recall him, he was the screw-up, his name coming from the Nintendo Entertainment System.) Anyway, in March GameSpot reported that Phillips, who left Nintendo in 1991 (wasn't I still reading Nintendo Power in '91?), has joined Chair Entertainment Group in my own native Utah--103 W. Center St. in Provo, for anyone who's keeping track. They're not entirely new, but this bodes well for their increased presence. 

And the ad on the side of that article reminds me that for a whole year now all the buzz seems to have been about the forthcoming Ghostbusters game...

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