June 10^th, 2004 (12:00am) - At a Nintendo corporate strategy conference held yesterday in Tokyo, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata managed to slip a few new details pertaining to the company’s future, which of course included the GameCube’s successor codenamed “Revolution.”

Iwata mentioned that the “Revolution” would have the ability to not only connect to television sets but also connect to PC monitors, making the console the first with the ability to do so since SEGA’s Dreamcast console. However this ability will be available “out of the box,” unlike the Dreamcast, which required the purchase of a separate VGA accessory.

Additionally, that which has been known for quite some time is the fact that the “Revolution” will feature processors based on IBM’s Power5 architecture, as will Microsoft’s Xbox successor, with an ATI graphics solution also in development for the console. Because of this, it is expected that the “Revolution” will truly be one powerhouse of a console despite Iwata-san’s harsh feelings towards the advancement of technology for the next generation of game consoles.

"However it might have been in the past," Iwata-san told the audience, "increased hardware efficiency isn’t connected to the consumer’s enjoyment any more" - and went on to say that "in the next generation, gameplay is what’s important."

The Nintendo DS is an excellent example that showcases Nintendo’s belief in forcing innovation into gameplay and the “Revolution” is meant to progress these ideas even further.

"We’re thinking of an innovative idea for our next generation console that’s completely different from consoles in the past," Iwata-san said. "It will be clearly distinct from the other next-generation consoles that competing companies will develop. What’s important isn’t a next-generation technology, but a next-generation way of playing games."

However, this “next-generation way of playing games” may come to a Nintendo home console sooner than expected with the GameCube’s upcoming Mario Party 6.

Mario Party 6 is rumored to be utilizing Nintendo’s upcoming and somewhat secret GameCube camera device. Although not an entirely new concept, this device could be giving gamers a taste of what’s to come with the “Revolution.”