[GDC] Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote

Satoru Iwata's speech begins in a few moments. Keep an eye on this spot, GameDaily.com, IGN.com, EuroGamer.com, Kotaku.com, Joystiq.com, or AdvancedMN.com for updates:

10:30AM - From GameDaily, "GameDaily arrives. People are filing into the auditorium for the keynote, with plenty of Nintendo DS systems in hand and the line going all the way around the corner. PACKED. A fanboy is walking around wearing a sign "Iwata dropped the bomb!", and on the back it said "Revolution is the only solution!". Inside, three screens are on hand for the presentation, one big one in the middle and two on each side, all with the Nintendo logo. There are four tables present, each with Nintendo DS development kits on them."

10:30 - From Advanced Media Network, "The auditorium is filled to capacity, a Nintendo fan is parading around the room with an "Iwata Dropped the Bomb" sign. Pictures to follow later. Keynote to begin shortly, anticipation rising."

10:31 - From GameDaily, "A slide is shown by accident showing the Nintendo DS, a Doritos logo, a Pepsi logo, and Brain Training."

10:32 - From AdvancedMN, "Keynote has not yet begun. Confirmed: first aspect of the address will heavily emphasize Brain Age, and Brain Training Academy for the Nintendo DS. Nintendo is focusing a lot of attention of the early aspect of the show on the DS. Address delayed some ten minutes. Nintendo representatives had previously accidently closed their powerpoint window revealing the DS emphasis planned."

10:44 - From GameDaily, "Keynote has started. Video presentation."

10:46 - From GameDaily, "Iwata has come out. Applause."

10:48 - From IGN, "Talks about Nintendo's positioning in the market. Mentions how Pepsi is #1 in soft drinks worldwide by executing a disruptive strategy. Every developer understands that the three basic foodgroups are Cheetos, Dorritos and Fritos. (laughter)"

10:48 - From EuroGamer, "Iwata takes to the stage. At this point he's talking a little about history - "Company A" usurping "Company B" in the 1990s - apparently it was a comment on Coke and Pepsi and bottled water, but obviously also a comment on Nintendo using the handheld market to regroup and reconsider its strategy while Sony got going with PlayStation. Apparently the "story about Pepsi demonstrates how thinking differently and holding strongly to your strategy can disrupt an entire industry in a good way"."

10:50 - From IGN, "The game industry is ready for disruption."

10:51 - From EuroGamer, "As is tradition, Iwata begins an address discussing Nintendo's current situation - the success of Nintendo DS, Nintendogs, etc. "New kinds of softeare creating brand new players"."

10:53 - From EuroGamer, "Iwata is now talking about Brain Training, and says he will discuss where the idea came from. (Diet Lilt?) "It came from where all great ideas come from - from our board of directors." [Laughter] [Forgiving crowd perhaps]."

10:54 - From AdvancedMN, "# 6 million copies of nintendogs sold world wide in a year # Iwata takes a stab at Sony, describing how the PS2 took 21 months to reach the 6 million mark while the GBA took only 20 and the DS an astonishing 14. 1st Brain Training has sold 1.7 million with the sequel surpassing it with 1.8 million sold."

10:55 - From EuroGamer, "Iwata says he put together a task force to make a product whose appeal would include everyone from children to seniors - some of the taskforce had little experience of development. They settled on the Brain Training idea because of the popularity of books along those lines in Japan at the time - Nintendo CFO Mori-san was a big fan of them, he says."

10:58 - From IGN, "Tells story about how the prototype was demoed, they were measure the impact with a brain scanning device."

10:58 - From EuroGamer, "Continuing on the subject of Brain Training, Iwata says that Dr Kawashima (who wrote the book) only agreed to meet with Iwata for one hour - on the day when the DS launched in Japan. Kawashima hooked a guy from the Nintendo team up to a monitor and showed that the prototype game was affecting blood flow in the brain - Iwata says this was "a very important moment"."

10:59 - From AdvancedMN, "Audiance erupts in laughter over a story of a Japanese writer borrowing a nintendo task force member and putting a brain scan device on his head to monitor the activity of his brain. Picture looked like a strainer bowl with wires."

11:01 - From IGN, "Introduces Bill Trinen (NOA). Showing a DS playing Brain Age. Not really a game -- more an interactive training program. He shows off "Quick Play.""

11:01 - From EuroGamer, "Technology like handwriting was developed without any real idea what it would be used for - and ended up being perfect for Brain Training, Iwata says."

11:01 - From IGN, "DS is turned sideways (as IGN readers know from our coverage of the game). Bill shows off the main mode, including the different mental exercises which appear in random sequence. Exercises include counting, math, ability to read text out loud, etc."

11:02 - From IGN, "The content of the exercises is randomly generated so that users can't remember sequences and have to adjust on the fly. Shows off graphs tracking improvement. Stresses importance of the DS's unique features, such as recognition of hand writing and voice recognition."

11:06 - From IGN, "Bill invites people up on stage: the director of the GDC, Geoff Keighly (G4's Attack of the Show host), and developer Will Wright. The three try out Brain Age and compete in an arithmetic challenge. Bill beat everyone, of course. Another competition."

11:09 - From GameDaily, "Trennon wins with a low score, but Wright has a Brain Age of 41. Audience laughs. Keeley's gets in the 60's, Moledina ends up with a 37."

11:12 - From IGN, " Iwata takes back the mic and talks about the simple but addictive appeal of Brain Age. Calls the title one of the biggest successes. The development came from the idea that people wanted something new. The only real way to demonstrate the appeal of these games is to let people try them -- found that consumers without interest in games were soon hooked. Encourages gamers to share the title with their non-gamer friends and even parents."

11:13 - From GameDaily, "Explains how Brain Age is a "disruption"."

11:14 - From RevolutionReport, "Brain Training has sold more than 5 million copies for Japan. Originally, retailers had orders for 70,000 games, but a month later placed orders for about 800,000."

11:14 - From IGN, "Nintendo is taking a different approach to technology, but also find a way to make it attractive to everyone. Says network gaming has been around since 1998, but Nintendo Wi-Fi evolves it in a unique way that opens it up to a new audience."

11:14 - From EuroGamer, "Nintendo forced retailers in Japan to play the game in this way to convince them to order it in (with Will Wright?!), says Iwata. 70,000 were ordered - higher than expected, but not satisfactory for Iwata. When they came back with the second game, 850,000 were ordered. Now 5 million have been sold across the range in Japan. There are two simple rules to making great games - first, listen to your boartd of directors; second listen to the CFO. More laughter."

11:16 - From RevolutionReport, "As a gift, all people in attendance of the keynote received a copy of Brain Age to try for themselves. Nintendo gave copies to employees to take home and how family and friends that don't normally play games."

11:18 - From AdvancedMN, "Moving onto Wi-Fi. Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection not even considered until 2004. Mario Kart and Animal Crossing served as test subjects of sorts for Wi-Fi play."

11:20 - From GameDaily, "Says that no one wants to play Animal Crossing online, someone has to come in and cut down all the trees. Audience laughs."

11:16 - From IGN, "Elaborates on challenges and successes of the Wi-Fi project. Connection process needs to be simple. Some may find it more fun to play strangers, others like to challenge friends. One million unique players in only 18 weeks."

11:21 - From AdvancedMN, "# Wi-Fi Connection began as a gameplay version of the popular website Myspace. Nintendo wanted Wi-Fi to be seamless to connect with people, just as if they were sitting in the same room."

11:21 - From RevolutionReport, "Nintendo Wi-Fi network has had over 29 million gaming session with over 1 million users. Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection reached 1 million users five times as fast as Xbox Live, Iwata said."

11:20 - From EuroGamer, "Nintendo didn't want to just appeal to those in the vocal hardcore, Iwata says. Instead they wanted to achieve a friendly atmosphere where you invite your friends to play. Apparently WFC was originally known as "Project Houseparty". It's important to give players freedom to choose to play with strangers or with their own friends. Iwata wanted to avoid situations where someone entered a game and cut down all his trees in Animal Crossing! WFC has grown much faster than Xbox Live, Iwata says, with over one million users since launch. It took Xbox Live 20 months to reach that level, he points out. Iwata is now demonstrating a Wi-Fi game of Metroid Prime: Hunters (out now in the US) with four players."

11:22 - From IGN, "We've added a new title to use the service: Metroid Prime Hunters. Invites Bill back on stage to demo the game. Another competition: Bill against the creators of the game. Another competition: Bill against the creators of the game. Introduces the different ways to battle, including the morph ball."

11:27 - From AdvancedMN, "NST representatives playing Hunters, Wing Cho, Wi-Fi game designer, Max Slagor, Mike Harrington, etc. Meroid Prime Hunters Still being shown..."

11:29 - From IGN, "Iwata takes the stage. There's one more new adventure for you today."

11:29 - From GameDaily, "Iwata explains how even grandmothers loves the DS, and talks about Tetris DS and New Super Mario Bros.. Audience claps upon seeing Mario. A new Zelda game is revealed for the DS, but uses an engine similar to Wind Waker."

11:30 - From AdvancedMN, "New Ds title shown - ZELDA!"

11:30 - From IGN, "Cel-shaded-style graphics. Top screen: mostly maps. Action is on the lower screen. Use touch screen to draw things -- transitioning the bottom screen input to the top."

11:30 - From RevolutionReport, "Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS."

11:31 - From IGN, "Iwata is asked all the time: How did you get the idea for the Revolution controller. Elaborates on how some people are afraid to touch regular game controllers."

11:31 - From EuroGamer, "Aha. A 3D Zelda game on the DS - 2D perspective, but 3D graphics, loads of touch-screen controls. It's called "Zelda: Phantom Hourglass". It'll launch later this year and will be playable at E3 alongside Twilight Princess (Cube)."

11:34 - From IGN, "Reiterates backwards compatibility to all previous Nintendo titles and the need for the controller to function with it."

11:31 - From EuroGamer, "Iwata turns to Revolution. "Why are people comfortable picking up a TV remote, but not a game controller?" Revolution needed to be wireless, approachable, sophisticated, and "revolutionary", he says."

11:34 - From AdvancedMN, "15 people were involved with the design of the controller. Data pointing technology was the key aspect of its development. Early last year a young man came up with the idea for the one handed style for the controller."

11:37 - From IGN, "Games specifically developed for the SEGA Genesis and for the TurboGrafx console will also be playable on Nintendo Revolution. Not all of them -- but the best of them will be. Most important thing is still to be told."

11:35 - From GameDaily, "A picture of Miyamoto is shown as Iwata continues his presentation. The Metroid Prime creator didn't seem so crazy about the Revolution controller, thus the idea for the additional plug-in for control. Prototypes for the controller are shown, and then the final version, originally shown at the TGS. Iwata talks about the new interface."

11:38 - From AdvancedMN, "Miyamoto came up with the idea for an attachment plug in for it. Metroid Prime Development team came up with nunchuck idea. Sega's games available for the system's virtual console Classic games are a crucial aspect of the nintendo revolution, ie the virtual console aspect. As previously mentioned, SEGA games will be available on the Rev. Clarified - Original Sega Genesis games will be available as well as others from other systems."

11:38 - From EuroGamer, ""Some people put their money on the screen; we decided to put ours on the game interface" - although producing the controller will be expensive, he says. "New is good, but there is also an appetite for old" - for kids, classic games are new, for adults they're a way to relive old experiences, Iwata says. So Sega Mega Drive games will be available through Virtual Console, and this applies to Hudson software as well."

11:40 - From EuroGamer, "Iwata talks about cost as a barrier to entry. $50/60 games require big teams, licenses, massive marketing cost. Thus, it's "understandable that publishers rely on sequels", "our industry is starting to look like a bookstore where you can only buy expensive encyclopedia sets". Iwata contests that if Tetris was presented now, developers would be told to get more levels, better graphics and a movie licence. Future Zeldas, Marios and Metroids will be bigger masterpieces than ever before - but this doesn't have to be the only business model, he says. Virtual Console is the videogames version of iTunes Music Store. Others will offer such a service, but it won't be the same."

11:41 - From GameDaily, "The new Mario and Metroid will be games to be played in a whole new way. Says the Nintendo download service is comparable to Apple's I-Tunes service."

11:38 - From IGN, "Most important story is still to be told: how developers will work with the new consoles. Huge amounts of money are needed to market games, to create the elaborate graphics, etc. Elaborates on Nintendo's desire to do something different -- provide solutions for people with great ideas. Nintendo understands importance of graphics. Games like Mario, Zelda, Metroid will all look better than ever. But those will not be the only types of games. Stresses innovation. Essential to reach new audience: younger people, older people. Nintendo is commited to creating a development environment that lets developers and publishers expand and express themselves. In a few weeks, you will play and see and understand our philosophy. Videogames are meant to be one thing: fun."

11:44 - From GameDaily, "The appeal is wanting to be spread between new and old players alike, and the download service should appeal to both. Nintendo is committed to making games fun for everyone. They are making sequels, but new IP's will also be produced. They've disrupted handheld gaming and wireless gaming, but, in a few weeks (E3), they will disrupt the console one as well. Keynote concludes."

11:44 - From IGN, "Thanks everyone for inviting him."

11:45 - From EuroGamer, "Iwata leaves the stage."

End

Image of Zelda for Nintendo DS