EBGames recently interviewed Peter Main, who had some informative responses to a handful of great questions.

Check it out:

Peter Main, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Nintendo

Western Hemisphere, has been around the video game business for quite

a while and has participated in some of the most successful products

and launches in video game history.

The launch of Nintendo’s GameCube on November 5, 2001, will be Main’s

seventh platform launch in 15 years. “Eight if you count Virtual

Boy,” added Main. We talked recently to Main to get his thoughts on

the upcoming launch and the immense popularity of Nintendo games.

Question #1 Nintendo has said that the GameCube will carry on the DNA of Nintendo games and give birth to a new kind of entertainment. Would you elaborate on that?

Peter Main: The DNA of Nintendo games is, in essence, what we’re referring to as the Nintendo difference. We continue to believe that, perhaps unlike some of our competitors, there is a continuing, real interest in plug-and-play gaming activity built upon better quality entertainment. It’s not technology driven. It’s not about online or new media. It’s about game-based entertainment that can provide great value to kids from 2 to 102.

So our DNA is still built around some of those original precepts that

were behind the Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and other character

franchises that we successfully built over the years. Video gaming is

still dependent on us finding better ways to spin a finite number of

tried and true gaming ideas. It’s a puzzle game, it’s an

action/adventure game, it’s about good over evil, it’s about all

those basics. The Nintendo DNA has resulted in products that have had

the highest level of acceptance of any gaming products in the world.

Now, what is the next level? Some believe it is technology driven and

that it’s going to be about multiplayer online gaming. We say maybe,

but it doesn’t appear to us that it’s going to imminent.

A few years ago, our company introduced a phenomenon called Pokémon,

built on a very fundamental notion that kids have embraced around the

world forever of finding, collecting and trading.

We built a gaming exercise that, with 2D graphics running on an 8-bit

processor, became the most compelling gaming in the entire world.

Pokémon titles represented 11 percent of the entire industry sales

last year. This is telling you something; it’s not technology, but

it’s spinning some of those tried and true stories in a different

way.

The GameCube has the best technology that IBM can bring to it. It’s

got unique internal workings that were designed first, second and

third as a gaming machine, not as a multi-tasking set-top box.

GameCube is a lean, mean gamer’s machine, ready for today, but really

prepared for tomorrow by virtue of its 56K and broadband adapter

capabilities.

We are going to have the biggest array of proprietary games of any of

the three systems because we have, between first and second party,

more development resources than anybody in the world. And when we add

to that a line-up of all the leading third-party publishers bringing

GameCube products that are playing in differing versions on Xbox or

PS2, we’re coming to market with a dynamo line-up.

If everybody’s got the same sports games and puzzle games, then the

real decision comes down to, who’s got the unique stuff that takes

that over the top? We believe we do, and we bring that to market at

$199 and, if you’re in the business of enjoying a little bit of fun

from game-based interactive entertainment, we think GameCube is going

to be your answer.

Question #2 You talked about the fact that Nintendo has been very successful in developing game franchises that really have a lasting appeal like Zelda and Mario and Pokémon. Is the new Shigeru Miyamoto game Pikmin in the same league?

Peter Main: When we first showed Pokémon, it was greeted with yawns, it was greeted with quizzical looks. What’s a Pokémon? What are the names of those things? What are you talking about? Do kids want anything that difficult?

Pikmin has many of the same, very interesting characteristics. The

story line behind it is really simplistic: if you want to do things

on your own, you’re going to have all kinds of challenges. If you can

organize collective behavior, you can run your own army. It comes

right down to that.

Coming out of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in May, we were

intrigued with how much real positive feedback came from a group that

was much older than we thought was the primary target group for this

thing. While it looks and seems and feels like kid stuff, there was

huge interest amongst the game fanatics, who write for the gaming

magazines and work with other developers, saying that the gameplay

values of this thing are phenomenal.

So, to answer your question, we think it has huge potential. All the

early indicators are that he’s got a very, very interesting new

paradigm in gaming. I don’t even know what I call that thing. I don’t

even know what I call Eternal Darkness. Those are new paradigms on

old stories. Our mandate is to innovate, innovate, innovate.

Question #4 It seems that going into E3, much of the focus was on another company that’s introducing a new console....

Peter Main: Yeah, down the street from me here.

Question #5 But people were really impressed by the quality of the GameCube games that were shown at E3. What was your take on all that?

Peter Main: We were just absolutely pleased with the overall reception to everything that was shown there. I think that the commentary by analysts, media and retailers paid tribute to our corporate culture. It’s our only business and we’re heavily focused on it.

Our engineers were telling us that this simplistic device, which was

being directed -- not by a hardware engineer -- but by Miyamoto-type

people, would prove to be the better gaming device. We started to see

the first examples of that at E3. And that’s why we come right back

to the question: “What’s it all about?” To use the vernacular, we

think we’re gonna really deliver some kick-ass gaming from a quirky

little cube, and the world’s going to be blown away by it.

Question #1 So the fact that the GameCube launch is scheduled for the same week as that other company down the street?

Peter Main: We didn’t know that! We kind of stumbled into it, but we feel very good.

The feeling we came away from the show with was, again, just

tremendous, tremendous response. We were measuring very carefully how

long people were spending on the machines and what their comments

were. Our management in Japan was very anxious to hear that feedback

before the end of the show so that they could go public with what

they believed was a very aggressive price point and an aggressive

timetable to bring it to market.

But in this business, and I’ve been around it for a while, you feel

real good, and then you put back on your care and caution glasses and

say, “Get that software finished! Let’s get the advertising done!”

We’re every bit as focused on the nitty-gritty detail as we’ve ever been to make sure this turns out right.

Question #6 Do you have a favorite GameCube game yet?

Peter Main: The quirky one you were talking is very, very interesting, but I think I’m a Wave Race guy. I thought that was a fabulous game. I thought the weather, the realism of the wave action. I tend to boat a lot. I’m not on that kind of vehicle, as a rule, but I find Wave Race a very exhilarating, fun, social action product that I think is going to do extremely well.

Thanks to MrCivic and Justin Ng for the heads up!