Post by Ztrl on Feb 24, 2004 23:15:17 GMT -5
Nintendo Co., which has been alluding for months to a secret video-game product in the works, last night identified it as a new hand-held device with two separate screens for game-playing.
The company said the portable game system, code-named the Nintendo DS, will launch worldwide by the end of the year. The company said it considers the device an entirely new product, not a successor to the Nintendo GameCube console or the hand-held Nintendo GameBoy Advance.
Nintendo doesn't think the Nintendo DS will take market share from either of those existing devices, said Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing for Redmond-based Nintendo of America. The GameBoy Advance currently dominates the hand-held video-game market.
"There seems to be an insatiable appetite for portable play," Kaplan said, citing steady growth in that portion of the market.
Nintendo did not release an image of the new product, but it said that the dual screens will let a user view games from two different perspectives, such as an overview map and a close-up of a battle. In a news release, Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo Co., said the Nintendo DS is "based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices."
Kaplan said software developers will receive kits that will let them create games to take advantage of the two-screen setup.
The screens on the Nintendo DS will be 3 inches each, about the size of an existing GameBoy screen, the company said. Nintendo promised more details at the E3 game convention in May.
Some additional Nintendo news bits have hit the web this morning, foremost among them the news that the Nintendo DS - previously announced here - will cost an approximate $187 USD (148 euro, 20,000 yen). That is to say, the cost of the unit should not be over that amount, which is nearly double the cost of a GameBoy Advance SP (which I presume is reasonable somewhat, as it comes with two screens and could essentially be considered as two GBAs, although that's somewhat of an exaggeration).
This is a speculated image of the DS screen:
The company said the portable game system, code-named the Nintendo DS, will launch worldwide by the end of the year. The company said it considers the device an entirely new product, not a successor to the Nintendo GameCube console or the hand-held Nintendo GameBoy Advance.
Nintendo doesn't think the Nintendo DS will take market share from either of those existing devices, said Perrin Kaplan, vice president of marketing for Redmond-based Nintendo of America. The GameBoy Advance currently dominates the hand-held video-game market.
"There seems to be an insatiable appetite for portable play," Kaplan said, citing steady growth in that portion of the market.
Nintendo did not release an image of the new product, but it said that the dual screens will let a user view games from two different perspectives, such as an overview map and a close-up of a battle. In a news release, Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo Co., said the Nintendo DS is "based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices."
Kaplan said software developers will receive kits that will let them create games to take advantage of the two-screen setup.
The screens on the Nintendo DS will be 3 inches each, about the size of an existing GameBoy screen, the company said. Nintendo promised more details at the E3 game convention in May.
Some additional Nintendo news bits have hit the web this morning, foremost among them the news that the Nintendo DS - previously announced here - will cost an approximate $187 USD (148 euro, 20,000 yen). That is to say, the cost of the unit should not be over that amount, which is nearly double the cost of a GameBoy Advance SP (which I presume is reasonable somewhat, as it comes with two screens and could essentially be considered as two GBAs, although that's somewhat of an exaggeration).
This is a speculated image of the DS screen: