Developers have welcomed Nintendo of America Inc’s decision to delay its 64-bit console as a time to catch up with its complicated coding. Nintendo has announced it is to delay the production of the Ultra 64 in America and Europe due to feverish demand in Japan. A poll at the Shoshinku exhibition showed that demand for the product was going to be so high that Nintendo would be unable to match it in production quantities. Consequently, Nintendo is still going for an April 21 release in Japan as scheduled, but is delaying the US launch until September 30 and sometime in November for Europe. There is no expectation of a higher price than the originally stated $250 which undercuts existing 32-bit consoles. But developers are pleased at having the extra time to get around the new system.
Under par sales
Developers have been given considerable upfront development costs and the delay for them merely means a delay in royalties for their games – not massive anyway as there is no installed base yet to cover. The support from Nintendo has been plentiful but exact details were confidential and probably different according to how close each developer is to Nintendo. Rob Borlin of developers THE Ltd in the UK said the key was to be out in time for Christmas which the new release dates will still match. Summer is a flat period anyway, he said, adding that a shortfall of games for Sega Enterprises Ltd’s console, Saturn, had probably accounted for under par sales – a predicament Nintendo is determined not to experience. In the Ultra 64, Nintendo boldly skipped the 32-bit games generation and went straight to 64-bit with a custom version of the MIPS Technologies Inc R4000 RISC, with Silicon Graphics Inc designing the Nintendo 64 architecture and chip set. It cut prices on its 16-bit software in preparation for the new system. The Ultra 64 uses a new three-grip controller for 360 degree movement. New C Buttons change a player’s perspective, and there’s a Z Trigger for shooting games. The controller features a Memory Pack accessory and players can use a Memory Card to save game play information on their controller and transfer it to another machine. The 64- bit games software is again stored in a mask ROM cartridge, but Nintendo also said that at the end of next year it will have 64- bit game software on a magnetic medium that users will be able to modify themselves – Flash memory cards presumably. Analysts’ forecasts of first year sales were between 4m to 6m worldwide assuming the launch went ahead in April, but this figure, though remaining the same, is now stretched over the new launch period. Nintendo is estimated to have sold some 50m 16-bit games machines globally, and the company knew it had a stiff task to get the new players out fast enough to maintain momentum. A second reason for the delay, according to Nintendo, was that there was a shortage of microprocessors and other miscellaneous chips for the console.
