wraggster
January 6th, 2005, 09:49
With the DS safely in stores and flying off shelves in both Japan and the US, and Europe eagerly awaiting a date and pricepoint, Nintendo wasn't expected to make any big announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.[br]There were no surprises. Rather than unveil new hardware or big up future platforms, Nintendo chose to concentrate on its successes in 2004 and the games that would appear on DS, GameCube and GBA in 2005.[br][br]Having already shifted in excess of 1.3 million units in the US alone since it launched on November 21 last year, the DS has been a huge success and Nintendo was keen to emphasise its future. "Publishers and game players have only just begun to tap the potential of Nintendo DS," said George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications, "and 2005 will continue the excitement we've experienced in 2004."[br][br]Nintendo discussed how 120 games were planned for release on DS during 2005 and singled out examples such as Wario Ware Touched! and EA's Need for Speed Underground 2 as triple A titles.[br][br]And while the DS is undoubtedly Nintendo's golden child at the moment, the Japanese giant was keen not to forget about GameCube and GBA. "Solid sales during the holidays" were cited for GameCube and Star Fox Assault, the new Legend of Zelda game and Capcom's Resident Evil 4.[br][br]Don't expect GBA to disappear now that DS is on shelves, either: 8 million of the handhelds were shifted in the US in 2004, making it the best selling games platform of the year. Titles to look forward to in 2005, according to Nintendo, include WarioWare Twisted!, Mario Party Advance and Pokemon Emerald.[br][br]In fact, some of the most interesting news from Nintendo came not from the showfloor but from the enthusiastic gob of Reggie Fils-Aime, the company's vice president of sales an marketing. In an interview with US games mag EGM, Fils-Aime talked about Revolution, Nintendo's next-gen machine, suggesting that it will be unveiled at E3 and will offer even more gaming innovation than the DS. [br][br]He also reconfirmed that Mario 128 had not vanished into a black hole but was still in production for the GameCube rather than the Revolution.[br][br]Not a great deal of stunning news from Nintendo at CES then, but it has been spoiling us recently with DS announcements. Here's looking forward to the European pricepoint and release date, which we should know by the end of the month.