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Harassin' Harrison

by Ed Shih - November 18, 2000, 5:25 am EST
Source: Gamespot

Gamespot had a Q&A session with Nintendo VP. click to see what he said!

Okay, maybe GameSpot didn't harass George Harrison (Nintendo VP of Marketing) too much, but they did get him to talk about Gamecube and Gameboy Advance in a recent interview...and knowing Nintendo's general reluctance to say anything about their new systems, I'm sure they had to use some form of coersion to get him to talk. While there's a good amount of N64 talk, Mr. Harrison gives a little insight on how the Big N looks to position the Gamecube in the next generation of console wars. Click here to see the whole interview, or just keep reading for some highlights.

GS: Does Nintendo need third-party support for its consoles to be successful?

GH: Absolutely. I think there are two sides to that. On the one hand, the exclusive games are the ones that make consumers decide which hardware platform to buy - a game that they can't get anywhere else. And for that, of course, we use our franchise characters and other properties. But the third parties provide a really important value in that they tend to work in categories that maybe our own development teams aren't as proficient. That includes games for older audiences and other genres. So we think they're incredibly valuable and have certainly been a strong part of our Game Boy business over the last three years.

GS: Do you anticipate that software will be playable at E3?

GH: Certainly for the Game Boy Advance it will. The intention right now is to launch the Game Boy Advance in Japan in March, so that should be definitive. And for the Nintendo GameCube, it's certainly our goal to have that happen. But, as with everything, until the software is 80- to 90-percent complete, the people who make the judgement here [Nintendo of America] aren't going to decide which games will in fact be shown. We are certainly going to cooperate with Japan on the decision about which games will actually be shown and which ones will be playable at E3.

GS: Dinosaur Planet and Eternal Darkness recently disappeared from Nintendo's release list. Are these games still in development for the Nintendo 64?

GH: They are still in development. I don't know when the determination will be made as to which platform they will be launched for. But they are both extremely tremendous-looking products. I think a decision was made to sort of step back and see what the potential is for those products on the Nintendo 64.

This last comment about the platform status of Dinosaur Planet and Eternal Darkness makes me wonder if they might be used to help make the Gamecube's launch line-up more mature. Eternal Darkness would definitely do that and if Rare gave a slight face lift to Dinosaur Planet (a la Jet Force Gemini) that could play towards an older audience, too. What do you think? Click on the talkback button and let your voice be heard!

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