Nintendo: Revolution will be cheapest next-gen console

Reggie Fils-Aime tells CNN/Money that his company expects to undercut rivals; hints at DS redesign, rules out HD support.
The Revolution remains the most mysterious of the three next-generation consoles. With only the barest of system specs and no tech demos little is known about the device--or what is so "revolutionary" about it. So far, its most innovative features are a unique controller and repeated statements by its maker, Nintendo, that it will appeal a vast untapped market of non-gamers.

Today, though, one of Nintendo's most public faces said the Revolution will also stand out from its competition for another big reason--price. Speaking to CNN/Money correspondent Chris Morris, executive vice president of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime predicted that the Revolution would be cheaper than both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3.

"Value has been a key card for us this generation and we'll continue to play it," Fils-Aime told Morris. "Do I expect us to be at a lower price point than our competition? Yes I do. Have we determined a price yet? No we haven't."

How low will Nintendo go? It's hard to tell. Rumors of a $199 Revolution are running rampant in forums, though there is nothing concrete to support such an assumption. However it would have to be below the only known next-gen price points. Microsoft is selling two Xbox 360 SKUs--$the no-frills $299 "core" Xbox and the $399 standard model with hard drive and wireless remote.

In his interview with Morris, Fils-Aime also reiterated the fact that the Revolution will not support high-definition televisions. "What we'll offer in terms of gameplay and approachability will more than make up for the lack of HD," he said. Both Microsoft and Sony are making much of the 360's and PS3's HD capabilities.

Fils-Aime also implied that the DS will see redesigns, just as the Game Boy Advance has. "As soon as [the DS] was launched, we started looking at ways to tweak it visually," he told Morris.

Okay, no HD-TV support, no hard drive, ummm....just what WILL this thing support?
Online gameplay? Wonder how Nintendo will bone that up, the cheap b@stards.

I see that iBall got banned, but I'm willing to carry on the discussion. I think it's interesting that people perceive Nintendo as being cheap by not including a hard drive. Of course, the Rev will have WiFi built-in and the 360 has just an ethernet port. Microsoft is even throwing in a free ethernet cable with the Premium Pack to highlight the fact that the 360's built-in network technology dates back to the Roman Empire.

Who's being cheap bastards now?

Worse yet, since when was a 20GB hard drive state-of-the-art storage technology? The Rev uses flash, and flash is the future. Even the Ipod is moving away from hard drives to flash with the Nano. As flash memory cards continually get bigger and cheaper, we'll only be using hard drives for mass storage (i.e., hundreds and hundreds of gigs). A 20GB hard drive is already laughable today. It's slow, unportable, large (just compare the size of the Rev to the 360), noisy, and prone to failure. Flash is the opposite in all areas.

So yeah, the XB360 is kind of giving you more. More outdated technology.

Again, who are the cheap bastards now?

X-Box is just a PC with a game based OS on it. why not just buy a PC? for the money your spending you can upgrade your PC to have a bloody Terrabyte Hard Disk and a 512 or whatever graphics card. Sorted!

another thing, X-Box 360 and PS3 are aiming it at the gamer market. so mainly people who are into hardcore 24-7 gameing. the Rev is aimed at everyone of all ages and Exp' so a 5 year old newbie and a 100 yearold liveing dead can play it. along with a 18yo harcore gamer. and Ninty are useing better more relialbe Tech instead of out of date stuff like the other 2, this is clear as there so damn big.