Nintendo’s top stars were shining this morning as they unveiled the Nintendo GameCube for the first time this morning in North America. Peter Main, Shigeru Miyamoto, and HAL’s Satoru Iwata were all on and to deliver Nintendo’s new vision of the console gaming future, and to outline their strategy for the new generation of gaming.

Nintendo is aiming to reinvent its self and our ideas of what great game play is with the GCN and GBA. At the heart of this strategy is what they call the “Nintendo Difference”. The ‘difference’ was punctuated with four main components.

Nintendo’s tight; non-stop innovation of game play will keep the market fresh and fun for gamers. The company’s fetish for quality will insure that gamers are rarely, if ever disappointed. Nintendo’s popular franchises will help maintain a recognizable face that gamers can recognize and enjoy. Finally, Nintendo’s heritage and reputation as one of the best developers of all time certainly put people’s mind at ease. They know that they are picking up quality every time they buy a piece of Nintendo hardware or software.

Nintendo’s difference also shows in the way they view themselves. “We are a game based entertainment company” chimed Iwato san at this morning’s press conference. The company feels that its competitors are really technology companies focusing on hardware, instead of software that entertains.

Tech companies focus primarily on graphics processing and repeating past success with sequels that don’t take chances or introduce the player to anything new. Nintendo will fight the ‘tech’ companies by focusing on its entertainment values that they call the “Nintendo Difference”. By bringing innovation, the best first and second party developers, familiar and new franchise characters, and an unmatched legacy of quality and creativity to the battle, Nintendo hopes to win over the hearts and dollars of games the world over.

Nintendo also revealed the release dates and launch budgets for the GBA and GCN.

GBA will of course release stateside on June 11th and have a hefty sized budget of 20 million devoted its launch campaign.

GCN will release on September 14th in Japan, November 5th in North America, and sometime in 2002 in Europe (sorry guys). GCN will also have the advantage of a huge launch budget of 75 million! Maybe Bill’s budget for the box isn’t quite so high after all.

The most important part of any console strategy has to be the games. With out the games, a console is nothing more than plastic and silicone. To this end, Nintendo has been touting its new broader focus, which now fully includes older teens and adults in there 20’s and 30’s. The point seems to have been proven with games such as Raven Blade, Eternal Darkness, Kameo, Metroid Prime, Smash Brothers Melee, Wave Race Blue Storm, and Rogue Leader. All of these games demonstrated a harder, more adult edge that should go along way towards broadening Nintendo’s image.

Nintendo isn’t about to abandon its coveted ‘family’ market. Games like Luigi’s Mansion, Animal Forest, and Mickey Mouse will still delight the young and young at heart around the world.

Based on what Nintendo has shown here at Nintendo’s E3 Press Conference, the competition definitely has its work cut out for them!

Article by Justin Wood