Nintendo Laughs Through E3

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Nintendo Laughs Through E3

By: David Utter
2006-05-11

While Sony and Microsoft have spent the beginning of the Electronic Entertainment Expo attempting to outdo each other in the eyes of observers, Nintendo steadily focused on what it has to offer to the gaming world.

Nintendo Laughs Through E3

Nintendo remains just as ready to make its mark with a new console as its competition. Unlike Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo doesn't have a stake in the HD DVD versus Blu-ray format wars. Their stake is in fun, and though they trail the other two in the home console market, there is reason to think they may be the one to impress the gaming market.

Even with an oddball console name like Wii, pronounced "we." The development name "Revolution" definitely had broader appeal. Nintendo smirked and gleefully changed it anyway, leading to what should be a lot of snickering as shoppers head to the stores to ask for a Wii.

Part of that cheerful approach could be the lack of pressure Nintendo has from Wall Street, as the company is not traded on the US boards; it is traded on the Tokyo boards, though. That doesn't mean Nintendo won't have an impact on companies that do have a presence on the Street.

One of those companies, Freescale Semiconductor (FSL), used to be one of Apple's suppliers of PowerPC processors. With the switch to Intel, Freescale will fall back on other businesses.

Freescale's CodeWarrior Radix Studio has been chosen as the official toolset for the Wii. CodeWarrior has a long-standing reputation for its high-quality development tools. Game developers for Nintendo will have to turn to CodeWarrior to build titles for the platform.

On the processor side, IBM (IBM) developed the CPU for Wii. Graphics processor maker ATI (ATYT) got the nod to handle the GPU for the console.

Though pricing and availability have not been announced, it has been hinted the Wii will be available for the holiday shopping season this year. With Sony's PlayStation 3 pricing to begin at $499, and will run much higher as gamers opt for the features in the $599 version, Nintendo's prices will probably be more friendly to the mass market.

Big-box stores like Best Buy (BBY), and online retailers like Amazon (AMZN) should be encouraged by Nintendo's potential pricing and holiday availability. Should the PS3 prove to be in short supply, as happened with the launch of the PS2, Nintendo could pick up some of those sales as it did with the Gamecube's launch against the PS2.

Tag: Nintendo

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About the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for InternetFinancialNews and WebProNews covering technology and business.


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