Friday, February 02, 2001

[ THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FEBRUARY 2nd 2001 ]



Yamauchi declares that Nintendo will not work with Square, but has inked a deal with Sega.

In an article with Bloomberg Japan, Hiroshi Yamauchi, the president of Nintendo Company Limited, stated that the company does not and will not have a contract with Square to produce software for the Game Boy Advance or the GameCube. Yamauchi made this statement despite the fact that Hisashi Suzuki, Square's president, expressed an interest in developing games for Nintendo hardware at Square's business strategy meeting last week. Yamauchi did state that Nintendo has already signed a contract with Sega to allow the company to produce software for Nintendo's upcoming handheld, the Game Boy Advance. No specific titles were given, but Yamauchi explained that Sega has already begun development of GBA software.

Yamauchi claimed that he expects Nintendo's profits to rise 39 percent in the current fiscal term due to the release of the Game Boy Advance. The Game Boy Advance is scheduled to hit the Japanese market on March 21. Nintendo has already taken 2.7 million presale orders for the 32-bit handheld and 1.4 million preorders for Game Boy Advance software in Japan. Yamauchi claimed that one million Game Boy Advance units are scheduled to be available for its US launch in July and that he anticipates selling 24-25 million units of Game Boy Advance hardware worldwide over the next year.

When asked why Game Boy Advance will not be launching with a Pokemon title, Yamauchi stated that it simply was not finished in time. According to Yamauchi, the first Pokemon title for Game Boy Advance should be ready for release in the summer of 2002. He also reiterated that Pokemon stores are scheduled to open in New York City and London later this year.

Speaking briefly on Microsoft's Xbox console that is currently scheduled for release this fall, Yamauchi admitted that Bill Gates is a world-renowned businessman, but claimed that he knows nothing about the video game industry. Yamauchi believes that Microsoft will have difficulty breaking into the market.

[ THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FEBRUARY 2nd 2001 ]

Labels: archive, news, nintendo-news

  

         
Posted by Jepoy on 2/02/2001 11:31:00 PM | 0 comments |

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