GDC Q&A: Nintendo VP Reggie Fils-Aime

SAN FRANCISCO--Following Nintendo's keynote from president Satoru Iwata, we had the opportunity to sit down with executive vice president of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime to talk about the keynote, E3, and Nintendo's future.

GameSpot: Nintendo has stated that the Revolution will be Wi-Fi-enabled. Does this also mean that the console will be able to get online?

Reggie Fils-Aime: Revolution as well as Nintendo DS, as we launch the right software and finalize our system, will be able to get on the Internet. So you'll be able to play your neighbor across the street, you'll be able to play your friend cross-country, or that new friend across the world. When we talk about Wi-Fi-enabled, we really are talking about wireless play through the Internet for both of those systems and we're committed to making that happen on DS by the end of the year.

GS: This positive approach to the Internet is a noticeable change of direction from Nintendo's previous stance on the matter, which was decidedly different. What's brought about the change?

RF: Well, I wasn't at the company when some of those decisions were made, so I can't speak too much about the past. What I can tell you is that Nintendo has always been a believer in creating a community--that group of fans that play our systems. I think what's become apparent is that we now have a way to provide an infrastructure, a backbone, in a way that makes sense, in a way that's financially feasible for us, and it was all about being able to provide that infrastructure free for the gamer. Now that we've sorted that through, we're going to push full bore in making this happen.

GS: When can we expect to see the online-enabled DS games?

RF: We've talked about fourth quarter in terms of when the games that truly take advantage of wireless connectivity, through the Internet, will happen. Metroid Prime Hunters is going to be wireless play local area network (LAN), so eight players playing Samus hunting each other. That's where we're going, so from a wireless Internet play standpoint [it's] fourth quarter.

GS: What would you say to GBA owners that feel that the GBA has been neglected in favor of the DS?

RF: We've announced that WarioWare: Twisted!, which has a unique gyro system, has been delayed for some technical reasons, but that's coming out right around E3. Then we've got Pokémon Emerald that launches here in North America on the first of May. So we've got a number of great games coming for GBA and there are more great games coming all through the third and fourth quarters as well. One of the things that excites me about Game Boy Advance, frankly, is all of the great third party product that's coming out. Revenge of the Sith is coming out on GBA, it's also coming out on DS. There are a number of truly great games that our licensees are bringing out to the market. I think those are games our fans need to check out.

GS: Do you feel that developers "get" the DS?

RF: A large reason why we're here at GDC and why Mr. Iwata spoke was to help the development community really get Nintendo DS. We showed off Nintendogs that uses voice activation to control your virtual puppy and it took the crowd by storm. We also showed a very unique "game" called Electroplankton that also took the group by storm. I'm not sure that Electroplankton will make it to this country as a game, but I can envision a touch screen-and-voice-driven hip-hop or rap music game that utilizes all that same technology and pushes Nintendo DS out there and really drives it in the forefront, in terms of what the technology is capable of doing. So I think part of our job is truly teaching the development community what the system can do. In my view we've only scratched the surface. We probably, as a worldwide development community, have only touched about the first 30 percent of what Nintendo DS can do. As games like Nintendogs and Electroplankton come out I think we're going to start seeing more and more. This system is truly robust and we look forward to bringing out some fantastic product ourselves that truly take advantage of Nintendo DS.

GS: Has there been any thought given to bringing the Play-yan out in the US?

RF: The Play-yan is a really neat idea. What we're looking to do is see how we make it applicable for our consumer out of the box. What I mean by that is, to have the Play-yan, to have an SD card, maybe have one or two free music downloads that are built into a package is really what we're trying to conceptualize, because we think that's right for this American marketplace. So more to come at E3 on that.