Nintendo is described much as Apple is today: obsessed with quality even at the expense of development speed, overbearing toward retailers and software developers, and highly litigious. Sega, like the free Android smartphone software Google pits against the iPhone, succeeded by offering friendlier terms to Nintendo's partners.
In February, 1989, Atari filed a $250-million suit against its huge rival, alleging that it has violated antitrust laws by preventing designers of software for its game consoles from selling their wares for other systems. Nintendo has said the suit is "meritless."
A game that keeps a smile on the player's face is a wonderful thing. Nintendo's theme for 2006 will be 'Create new fun.' Spread the fun of games to everyone. To do this, we must return to the beginning, to recapture the essence that made people who enjoy games even now enjoy them in the first place.
Our competitors are always saying that Nintendo is just for children. To counter that, what we really need to do is explain to customers and potential customers [that we do not just make games for kids]."
Meanwhile, Nintendo holds such a commanding lead in the American computer game market that it is occasionally accused of monopolistic practices. Last December, for example, Rep. Dennis Eckhart (D-Ohio) asked the Justice Department's antitrust division to investigate Nintendo's "significant intimidation in the retail market," which supposedly stifles competition.
Nintendo, though, prefers to compare itself to Walt Disney Co. rather than International Business Machines or Apple Computer. And if it can maintain anything near its recent success, the most important U.S. entertainment company owned by a Japanese firm may not, in the future, be located in Hollywood.
We teamed up with MIT's Media Lab because we want to go beyond entertainment. We think children ought to learn while they're having fun.
I suppose I could give you a list of the technical specs. I believe you would like that, but I won't for a simple reason: they really don't matter.