Well, so much for getting an HD Nintendo console anytime soon. In a recent interview, Satoru Iwata suggested that due to the expected extended life cycles for this generation’s video game consoles, we could be a good eight years away from a new home console from Nintendo.
It looks like there’s been a switch from racing to find the best graphics to racing to build the best motion-sensing control system. How does that change the typical console life cycle?
Satoru Iwata: The industry used to believe in a five-year cycle for graphics. That depended on the evolution of silicon chips. While the overall cost remained the same, we figured out how much more graphics could be done with the newest chips. Nowadays, dependence on computer graphics improvements isn’t as important as it used to be. That must be why the other companies are now paying attention to motion-sensing controls. As you know, a lot of people in this industry believe that the life cycle for consoles should be longer than five years. However, when it comes to the platform cycle, Nintendo has different opinions from the other companies. I think we have a different criteria about when to shift to a new platform. Technology companies would tend to focus on a technology roadmap about when certain technologies will be available at a given cost. Then they lay out their plan to make a certain kind of hardware. That’s how PC makers decide how to make PCs. With Nintendo, developers like [Shigeru] Miyamoto decide. As long as they are comfortable with the current technology’s ability to deliver meaningful surprises to the users, we don’t need new hardware. However, when they start demanding something new, when they see the existing hardware can’t provide what they need, then that is when we decide to launch the new hardware. As for timing, it may be three years from now, five years from now or eight years from now.
So an HD Nintendo console could be as near as 2012, or as far off as 2017. Well, at least that means there’s time for a Super Mario Galaxy 3… but likely no new Super Smash Bros. for a decade.
