Games for Nintendo's forthcoming successor, dubbed the Revolution, are in now in some quarters; revealed Ninty chief during a chin-wag with Business Week. Having previously stated that development kits for the Revolution would be sent to developers around E3 (May), the big boss surprised all by stating that some kits are already in the hands of developers. "Development kits are already out there, depending on which stage you're talking about," he commented, cryptically. "All I can say right now is 'in the near-future' for the basis platform information they will need to get started on games."

"Whether is a winner or loser on Revolution totally depends on how our customers react to it, and since they do not know much about it, I can't respond. A year or two from now, it will be interesting to know who ultimately made the right choices. I'm confident we have made the right decisions," Iwata added, when questioned on the Revolution's chances against the and 2.

The Revolution is believed to take a similar approach to consoles as the does to handhelds, spicing-up the traditional formula with innovative control methods and a few surprises. WiFi has already been confirmed, and it is known that the machine will be powered by a CPU from IBM, and graphics from ATI.

By Luke Guttridge