Nintendo: New consoles are a long way off

Monday 5th November 2007 - 17:00

No new console for years to come say's head honcho and Viking: Battle For Asgard Xbox 360 screens

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced that the company will be opting out of the typical four year development cycle before producing a new console or handheld. At a conference in Australia the top executive stated the he thought both the DS and Wii had a long way to go before any new hardware was introduced. He stated: "I'm quite doubtful that such a notion of platform cycles can be applied in the future. As we continue our research and study for new hardware, when we will be able to launch a new kind of hardware will actually depend on when we can change entertainment completely, and so have a strong impact on people around the world. Or, there will certainly be a time when we have to say that we have done everything possible with the current machine, that we can never propose anything new. Scheduling for a rather fixed launch date four years from today, regardless of future changes in the industry and the market, appears to be too inflexible an approach to us."

He continued: "Since Nintendo's hardware engineers and software creators are always communicating closely, only when both teams agree that it is time to challenge the market with new hardware that we will launch it.We are not suffering from the shortage of new ideas for DS. I heard that some of the attendees to our October 10 conference were expecting to hear about a new portable machine announcement, but we never had that kind of notion in the first place."

So all Nintendo fans should take a breather if they imagine a new platform is but a couple of years away. Although considering the almost monthly developments for the Wii with innovative new titles exploiting ingenious new methods of using the motion sensor controller we're hardly lacking in quality games!

Speaking of quality games, it brings us smoothly to a clutch of exclusive screens from the forthcoming Sega game Viking: Battle For Asgard coming to both the Xbox 360 and PS3 in Feb 2008. From what we know it's a mix of hack, slash, sword and sorcery in a mythical Nordic battle environment where dismembering is often the name of the game. We're hoping for a preview before the end of the year.