New EGM interview with Reggie

EGM: When Nintendo first showed the controller, it said there were other functions it wasn't talking about yet. Might those include a digital camera and microphone?

RF: As much as I think [Nintendo President Mr. Satoru] Iwata likes me, if I shared that with you I probably wouldn't be here. [Laughs] You know, here are the facts: Come [this May], we'll disclose a lot more. After [that], we'll disclose even more, and right about the time of the launch, we'll disclose even more. There are certainly elements to everything we're doing about Revolution I'm talking beyond the controller, the virtual console, all the different element we'll be sharing all the way up to launch. And I believe as consumers understand the full range of benefits and the full functionality, the more and more they're going to get excited. I really do.

EGM: Given [Mario creator] Shigeru Miyamoto's outspoken admiration for Sony's EyeToy camera and the microphone function in the DS and recent GameCube games [like Odama and Mario Party 7], they seem like a natural fit for the Revolution controller.

RF: We could certainly see all of that. Again, our orientation is, how do we push the gaming experience, the interplay between the player and the game? So all of the different elements that enhance that capability's use of a camera, use of the microphone, voice activation all of that certainly I believe is fair game.

EGM: How about online with the Revolution how will it work? Will it be more like Xbox Live? Or more similar to how the DS is now, where you get a friend code that's different for every game and you exchange that like a phone number to find each other online?

RF: I would think [it'll be similar to the DS]. Again, that's been part of our [plan] in creating an environment that is more friend and peer-to-peer based, versus simply, I wanna go take on everybody for certain types of games.

EGM: You mentioned the virtual console where users can download old games to play on the Revolution. We know you're experimenting with revamping some games graphically what about retrofitting them to use the Revolution controller?

RF: [Long silence] Honestly, I don't know. If I look at this personally, given my own gaming experience, I would love to play my favorite game, whether it's Kid Icarus or it's Zelda: A Link to the Past. I'd like to play the original game in its original configuration. I don't know how I would feel as a fan to take that original game and to augment it in some way. I don't know what the technical challenges to do it are either. We'll find out.

EGM: Any chance we'll see a virtual console style online distribution of older Nintendo games for the Nintendo DS now that it's online?

RF: We certainly never say never. The piece that we are learning as we work through our plans for a virtual console on Revolution is really working to understand the flow of content, how to manage that. That's a fairly large interface to do it effectively. So my concern would be, how do you embed that on a DS [cart] in addition to the game to really make it effective? But we've said from the start that Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection is meant to be the service both for the DS as well as the Revolution. So could you see a merging of that technology at some point in the future? Certainly possible.

Well, we don't see much "new" stuff in this interview. However the prospect of playing retro games on the DS is cool. When he said Nintendo would keep revealing things about the Revolution all the way up until launch, I think (I hope) he means prices and online functions of the Virtual Console. At E3 the Revolution is expected to be fully playable and basically ready to go, so how much more info can Nintendo reveal after that? We will find out.