http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61604

Jim Merrick is a busy man. As Nintendo Europe's senior vice president
of marketing, he's been rushed off his feet lately trying to ensure
that we're all jolly excited about the forthcoming release of Mario
Kart DS and the launch of Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service.

AdvertisementAnd he's done a very good job, at least as far as we're
concerned. We're at the Nintendo Europe Summit in Frankfurt, where
we've already had the chance to play Mario Kart against opponents in
various locations all around the world, and we're very excited indeed.
Even more excited than when we realised they were giving us actual
frankfurters for tea.

Merrick's excited too, of course, but not about the frankfurters. No,
it's all about the main focus of today's events, Wi-Fi Connection, as
he explains when we get the chance to sit down and have a chat.

Getting connected
"We've been on the sidelines of online gaming for a long time - we just
didn't see the right combination of value for the consumer and
technology and gameplay," says Merrick.

"Now I think the time is right. We talked about the promise of Wi-Fi
when we first introduced DS and now we can show you, with Mario Kart
and with Tony Hawk, what Nintendo's vision of online gaming is."

You'll be seeing this all over the place soon.
But knowing Nintendo, and knowing that the Revolution is on the way, we
suspect this is just the beginning. So, for starters can we expect a
massively multiplayer title one day?

That's not Nintendo's style, says Merrick, but adds: "It's certainly
possible... It really depends on Mr Miyamoto and Mr Konno, and whether
they see that vision."

He reaffirms that the Revolution will make use of Wi-Fi Connection,
although it "has a lot of different requirements and capabilities."

These include the "virtual console", Merrick explains, which will allow
you to download NES, SNES and N64 games and store them on your
Revolution's 512MB of flash memory - which Merrick confirms is
expandable. And, of course, you'll be able to play GameCube games
straight off the disc - "You don't need an adaptor, the Revolution will
digest either full size Revolution games or the smaller GameCube
discs," Merrick says.

"It's actually one of the unique elements of the system - there's never
been a slot-based disc drive that can handle two different formats.
It's one of the neat pieces of technology nobody seems to pick up on."

But back to the virtual console. Merrick tells us that a number of
third parties have already committed to providing their back catalogue
for download, but he won't tell us their names.

"I think you can guess, though," he says. "The usual suspects."

Merrick continues: "Will it be every game we ever published on any
system? Probably not."

We point out that this is probably a good thing since some of them were
rubbish, frankly, and Merrick greets this with a chuckle. We point out
that we only meant one or two of them, and they were third party ones,
and that everything Nintendo has ever done has been completely
brilliant actually, and that we're very grateful that he hasn't thrown
us out.

Name your price
Ahh, happy days! We just can't wait to see this again.
Moving swiftly on, we ask Merrick what the price point for retro games
is likely to be. "I have no idea," he says. "What would you pay for
your favourite game of the 16-bit era, say?"

We suggest that naughty retro pirates would say "Nothing," since the
scamps can download many old games for free, in between supporting
drugs and terrorism and porn of course...

"If you want to play on your PC, then sure, but they don't play as well
there as they play on a console. And then in the middle of the night
there's a knock on your door and the Nintendo police come and take you
away," Merrick says. He's chuckling again, thankfully.

"Obviously, that segment of the market will always exist - there's
always going to be some sort of piracy. But I think that for many mass
market consumers, if it's easy and relatively low cost - 'Oh gosh, I
remember that, I love the original Mario Bros, I grew up on that game,
a couple of pounds and boy I can download that'" - that would be
great."

A couple of pounds, eh? Nothing's been confirmed, says Merrick. He does
reveal that Nintendo's online plans for Revolution don't stop at old
days games, however.

"It is possible that you could download movies or demos of games that
would expire in 30 days, or a game that you could share with another
person... Using the digital rights management system, there are a lot
of possibilities how we can control these things that we download,
whatever they are - movies, music, demos, or full games."

Hmm. That sounds a bit familiar - don't tell us Nintendo's going for
the whole "multimedia hub" thing too...

"No. When I talk about music and movies, I mean you might download a
trailer for a game, or in-game music. But our business is interactive
entertainment - we're not looking to be the home multimedia broadband
portal, they can fight over that." We think we know who "they" are,
even though he's not saying.

Speaking of which, when it comes to the question of Blu-Ray versus
HD-DVD, Merrick's very clear as to which side Nintendo's on: "Neither.
We're not getting involved with that argument at all." It's probably
for the best.

Back to the Revolution, then. When asked whether we'll be able to get
our hands on the console at E3 in May, Merrick repeats what he told us
last time - "I would be very disappointed if I went to E3 and didn't
play Revolution games, wouldn't you?" Yes, sir, and now you've said
that twice we're going to be even more disappointed if it all goes
wrong.

Merrick says he's not sure if we'll only get to play games using the
freestyle controller, or if those which use the "nunchuk" or "classic"
add-ons will also be on show. "It's really the developers' choice," he
tells us.

Ah ha, but which developers? And when, oh when are they going to tell
us about their games?

"We haven't announced specifically what will be shown when, but there
are a lot of third parties working on games for Revolution. But they
are third parties, so when they decide to show or when they decide to
announce is their call."

It seems likely that Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima will be one
of those third parties - the fact that he was bigging up the Revolution
at the Tokyo Game Show would imply that he's doing a game for the
console, surely...

"That would imply that, yes," says Merrick carefully.

"He had very favourable comments to say about the freestyle controller.
I think in his comments he stopped short of saying what game he was
working on, so again, as a third party it's his privilege to say what
he's doing."

But he is doing a Revolution game? "To my knowledge, yes." Goody.

Launch time
Just imagine, this could be sitting in your very own house one day.
Next we asked Merrick about Satoru Iwata's recent comments regarding a
possible simultaneous launch for the Revolution. Here's the good news:
"With DS, we were 14 weeks, which was the tightest Nintendo has ever
been with a console launch and that was an achievement. But with
Revolution, we expect to do better than that. That certainly is our
goal.

"You know, simultaneous - what's 'simultaneous'? The same day, the same
time?" Merrick goes on.

"That probably doesn't even make commercial sense. But within a few
weeks of one another, sure."

And here's the even better news: Europe might not get left behind for
once.

"We're very serious about trying to be a more global company and not
follow the stereotypical formula of Japan first, then the US, then
Europe some time later," Merrick says. So does that mean the Revolution
could be the first console to launch in Europe first?

"Anything's possible. There are no rules that it must be Japan or US
first." Hurrah!

Merrick says that Revolution is still "just a codename" for the
console, and that there's "a lot of trademark checking and copyright
issues" still to be sorted out. He says that various names are still
being bandied about - and that no, Revolution 360 isn't one of them.

Our time is almost up, according to the kindly PR gentleman with the
stripy scarf, so let's end with a tricky one. What does Merrick think
of Epic Games' Mark Rein and his suggestion that games based around the
freestyle controller will be "gimmicky", "cheap" and downright
"crappy"?

Merrick appears to be unconcerned. "Mark has a very narrow section of
the business. Epic builds middleware, they're very technically savvy
guys, but he doesn't have a Revolution controller, he doesn't have a
dev kit, he's talking about something he knows nothing about.

"So if he'd like to get a dev kit and really dig into it, then I'd be
interested to hear what he has to say."

There you have it, Epic Games' Mark Rein - come and have a go if you
think you're hard enough. And now there's just time for one more trip
round Cheep Cheep Beach before it's off home to reflect on what we've
learned, ponder the future of Nintendo and wonder why it's surprising
that frankfurters taste exactly the same in Frankfurt as they do
everywhere else in the world. Ah, life's great mysteries.