GDC 2006: Return of the Iwata

Last year at the 2005 Game Developers Conference, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announced that his company's next-generation console, the Revolution, would have built-in wireless functionality. Last month, he told a Japanese newspaper that his company planned to launch the Revolution by Thanksgiving in the US.

Next month will likely see Iwata divulge further details on the Revolution. For the second year in a row, the executive will be delivering a keynote address at GDC, which returns to San Jose after a one-year detour to San Francisco. In his address, titled "Disrupting Development," Iwata will "inspire developers to take risks and mine the depths of their imaginations to create innovative games regardless of the size of teams or budgets," according to GDC organizers CMP Media.

"We are extremely honored to feature an experienced platform leader such as Satoru Iwata as a keynote speaker," said GDC director Jamil Moledina in a statement. "As Nintendo reinvents the scope of what games can be, it is ever more crucial to share their creative and market-growing philosophies with the other leaders of the game creation industry."

Besides making some mention of the Revolution, Iwata will discuss his company's wireless network, the Nintendo Wi-Fi connection, as well as the series of brain-training games for the DS handheld. GameSpot will be on hand to cover Iwata's address and all other happenings of import at GDC 2006.