Nintendo to aim for simultaneous Revolution release

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed that a simultaneous global launch is planned for the Revolution, confirming that the console will not launch before March 2006.

Speaking to Nikkei Business, Iwata said: "I can only say that it's coming out during 2006, but it will be after the current fiscal year."

"We hope to make it a simultaneous worldwide release as much as it's possible."

Iwata did not offer any specific sales targets for the Revolution, but did state that it was imperative that the number of consoles sold was higher than the number of GameCubes sold - a figure which currently stands at 18.76 million.

"[Revolution] would be a complete failure if we didn't sell more units than the Nintendo GameCube," Iwata said.

He went on to talk about the Revolution's innovative new "freestyle" controller, revealed at the Tokyo Game Show last month. Perhaps suprisingly, Iwata revealed that former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi had no involvement whatsoever with the controller's development.

Iwata confirmed that the controller makes use of a variety of new technologies, although he declined to give details, and that it can be used with any type of television or digital projector.