THIS IS AN INTERVIEW I GOT FROM IGN64.COM




IGN Editor-in-chief Douglass Perry and IGN64.com Peer Schneider interviewed a calm, snappy Howard Lincoln at the E3 show in Atlanta.

Q:How do you feel about the show? Are you glad about Nintendo’s presence?

Howard: I feel very good about the show. I’m very proud how our industry as a whole has grown in the last four years. This is the fourth E3. I think that amazing things have happened. Not only do we have a very viable trade association, but tonight we’re going to have the first awards presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. In the long run, this is really important for the growth and vitality of the videogame industry as a whole. At least in the history of Nintendo of America, as long as I’ve been at NOA, we probably have the strongest lineup of games and other products that we’ve ever had for this back half of 1998. I’m very excited about Zelda, as I think most people are. We’re excited about Game Boy and Color Game Boy, I’m excited about taking Sony on about market share in the back half of 1998. These market shares are never stable; they go up and down, and I think we have a good hand of cards to play, and we’ll play them aggressively. Overall I think it’s shaping up to be a great show. I’ll be looking forward to getting back Los Angeles next year. I have a little difficulty with the heat right now. Other than that I couldn’t be better.

Q:Let’s talk a little about Zelda. Zelda was originally on the 64DD and now it’s on the biggest cartridge for the N64, 32 MB (256 Mbits). My biggest concern is that Nintendo of America won’t be able to get it out before Christmas. What are the dangers of that?

Howard: I think that’s a legitimate concern. There is a very high probability that we will not see any delays on this particular game. It is a critical game for N64 – really for all of the markets in the world. It’s very important for Nintendo Japan, and in Europe as well as the US.

Q:It’s an important universal title.

Howard: Yes. We’ve certainly had our share of delays in games. And it’s very difficult for gamers to understand the dynamics of what happens. Most of the time we delays things because of quality control, where the game developer is simply not satisfied. That’s been the case of a few Rare games. But in speaking with Miyamoto, based on what I know, I don’t anticipate this being an issue.

Q:November 23.

Howard: Yes, this is a key marketing date. It’s the start of Thanksgiving week. It’s the heaviest retail weekend leading up until Christmas, and it’s always the day on which we launch major titles.

Q:Are you worried that you’re not going to make demand? I remember that you didn’t have enough cartridges of Goldeneye last year.

Howard: Goldeneye was a learning experience for us. We’ve done some things to correct that in the US, in the assembly of cartridges in Redmond, as opposed to bringing them over by ship. We’re doing the same thing in Germany with Nintendo of Europe.

Q:How come you’ve decided to do that now, this late in the game, in 1998?

Howard: We’ve decided to do it because of the competitive pressure, the need to get product out as quickly as possible. And the realization that we could delays everyone’s inventory risk simply by doing some of the assembly of the games in the US, as opposed to them being on a boat and shipping across the Pacific for 12 days. We can airship the cartridges and then do the packaging, shrink wrapping, and all of that in Redmond. I think the demand for Zelda is going to be enormous. The numbers we’re talking about staggering. But as we get closer to that date we will have a very good idea in our own minds about the kind of manufacturing risk we’re willing to take. So, I can’t say there aren’t going to be any shortages, so you have to hope there are going to be some, you know? But, we certainly don’t want to have the kind of out-of-stocks we had before.

Q:In the press conference, you said that you expect to sell more than 2 million cartridge of Zelda between November 23 and New Years Eve. So, you’re going to make 2 million cartridges and ship them on day one, right?

Howard: Well, those numbers of big, but we deal in large volumes like that. Banjo-Kazooie will be over a million in the US alone. So, ramping up those kinds of numbers shouldn’t be a problem.

Q:So can you give us a solid number of Zelda cartridges that NOA will produce in the US alone?

Howard: Peter Main, our VP of Sales and Marketing, initial cut out is 2 million. I can’t quarrel with that. I think the expectations of gamers is warranted, and the game delivers, you guys have seen it. It’s awfully, awfully good. How many we do in the US? I mean this could be the biggest game of all time for Nintendo. This is a Miyamoto classic. You know, we’ve sold almost 4 million Super Mario 64s in the US alone.

Q:Are you expecting a simultaneous release in Japan and the US?

Howard: I think that the Japan launch will be a little bit before our US launch. Mr. Yamauchi has not finalized that date. In Europe, there is no Thanksgiving, so that date doesn’t have significance as a holiday, so our goal is to get it out in late November, early December.

Q:Do you think that the capability of manufacturing cartridges in Germany will pave the way for more simultaneous releases?

Howard: Well, it’s not the manufacturing of the cartridges; it’s the assembly. But it does cut down the shipping times dramatically. Our goal, particularly with the announcements we made in Rome, at the European Distributor meeting, is to shoot for either simultaneous release or within a very short period of time. As opposed to bringing stuff out months and months later. Sometimes, like with 1080, which launched in April, they’re going to launch that in Europe in October, that just makes sense. Unless you ski in the summer, you know. But other than that, but our overall goal is to come out with as simultaneous releases as possible.

Q:Are you going to assemble cartridges for second and third parties in Redmond as well?

Howard: Many of the big third parties are already essentially doing just for we’re doing. They’re air freighting in the parts and then doing the final packaging and shrink wraps.

Q:Zelda is going to appear on a 256 Mbit cartridge. Have there been any requests for games from third-party developers for this size cartridge?

Howard: We have given the pricing for all of the cartridge configurations, including the 256, and most of the third party product this year will be 96 Mbit or 128 Mbit. I’m not aware of any third-party developer yet who has requested this size, but that’s just a matter of time.

Q:I felt that yesterday you handled really well the questions about the 64DD, but that you were growing tired of them, and so I don’t want to ask you about them, but we have to. (Laughter) Are you glad that the 64DD isn’t coming out in the US this year?

Howard: Well, let me put it this way, I’m not very upset about it because of the huge line-up both Game Boy and Nintendo 64 products that we have coming. And there is a limit to any company’s ability to successfully launch products. I think we’ve got our hands full, with Game Boy, including Color Game Boy and Pokemon, and with the strong line-up of N64 titles. I’m not shedding any tears over it, let’s put it that way.

Q:In the press conference on Wednesday, you said that there was an indefinite release date for the 64DD arriving in 1999. Do you think that the 64DD will come out in the US ever?

Howard: I don’t know. I really don’t. That is a truthful answer.

Q:Is this a decision that will made by Nintendo Co. Ltd.?

Howard: That will be a decision made by Nintendo of America. Obviously, it will involve Mr. Yamauchi will be involved. But it is primarily an NOA decision.

Q:Are there any plans to upgrade the technology if it’s pushed back?

Howard: There are a number of projects in the works for N64 in addition to DD64, and I’ll just have to ask you to stay tuned. But I think that when we do make these announcements that everybody will feel very good.

Q:A long time ago, Nintendo was courting Netscape about a certain deal, and I heard possibilities of network capabilities in the 64DD, which even appeared on a spec sheet, and then they were dropped again. What’s happening with networking or any kind of linking capabilities?

Howard: We are very interested in the category of multiplayer games, including online gaming. We have good relations with Netscape, always have since Jim Clarke founded it. We have good relations with a number of companies in that area. I really can’t say anything more about it at this time, but I have high regard for Netscape.

Q:With the introduction of Dreamscape… I mean Dreamcast, that lovely new name for Sega’s hardware, do you feel that developers will flock away from N64 to the Dreamcast?

Howard: You guys also took shots at N64. You gotta be fair here. I thought Nintendo 64 was one of the most creative new titles in the history of man. Talk about a process of elimination…You eliminate everything until you get to 64 and N.

Q:With the introduction of the Dreamcast to the cast of gamers out there who are always looking for a new console, do you feel that the N64’s fire is being blown out? Yesterday at the news conference, you mentioned that fact that you were looking forward to the next 36 months of N64 games – which’s three years. Are you expecting the N64 to live longer than that?

Howard: I think the life of the N64 is longer than that. We’re still selling large numbers of NES, both software and hardware. So we sold more than 6 and 8,000 units of SNES hardware in the US alone, and that’s 6 to 8,000 more units than have been sold than Dreamcast. To answer your question, I think the life cycle of the N64 will be very long.

Q:Don’t you feel that the new Dreamcast, which has a 128 Hitachi RISC CPU, will simply overshadow the N64, and leave it quickly behind?

Howard: I think this: New technology and new videogame systems are always of great interest to the media, and to the hardcore gamers and to those who really follow this industry closely. And that certainly makes sense – we certainly knew this when we launched Nintendo 64. We spend a year of so talking about it, and using that as a competitive advantage. But for the mass majority of people who are in this marketplace, it’s all really a matter of games that are here and now. In the case of Dreamcast, as in the case with any new piece of hardware, it is totally dependent on the quality of software that they can come up with at launch. And even if they do that right, there are certainly a lot of other hurdles, and they need to get that right. Do I think that ultimately there are going to be next generations of hardware? Sure. That’s the nature of the business, and we’ve participated in that, and expect to participate in that in the future. But I think that the life cycle of Nintendo 64 is longer than most people think, and there are still a lot of things that can be done technically on N64 that haven’t been done from a development standpoint on the N64. And I think that when you see games like Zelda and Perfect Dark, that’s an indication that there’s still a lot of room to go. However, having said that, everybody in this industry is always looking at next-generation stuff, and we’re included in that.

Q:I noticed an interesting shift when the N64 was released, and the target group was very young. Age six to 12, and when I look at the age level of game that are coming out now, there are a lot of games for grown-ups and have more adult subject matter.

Howard: I don’t think that the demographics were that narrow when we launched N64. Certainly games like Super Mario 64 appealed to anyone who’s young at heart. What’s happening is that you’re seeing N64 games that are skewing both ends of the market. We’ve always been strong in the younger age category. We are reaching out with games like Goldeneye, games like Perfect Dark, games from third-party companies, games like Zelda, to an older demographic. But it’s important to understand what’s actually happening here. When we talk about the demographic, they have always been wider than people think, we knew we had 90-year-old people playing NES. Not a lot, but we had some. So the demographics were always wider. The sweet spot for NES and Super NES was boys seven to 14. That still is the sweet spot for our business. What’s happened is that those gamers are now adults, and from their point of view, paying videogames makes perfectly good sense. It’s not something new, it’s something that they’ve done, and it is a viable form of entertainment. Those people are gravitating toward videogames. And we have to supply games for them. So, we’re recognizing that we can’t just do a certain genre of games, we have to do the kind of games.

Q:When you first launched Nintendo 64, did you foresee having more titles out? You said that by the end of the year you will have 100 titles out. Your competitors have about 400 more games out than that.

Howard: Yeah, I don’t think we are ever going match the number of titles that Sega and Sony have reached. And I never foresaw that we would be matching them title for title. I’m generally pleased with the number of titles we have out.

I will post Part 2 of this interview next week!