At the first Annual ELSPA Games Summit recently Micorosft's representative Peter Moore, the corporate VP for retail sales and marketing, spoke about Microsoft's long-term direction. He also took time to comment on Nintendo.

The former president of Sega of America commented on the possibility of a handheld unit. He simply stated; "We're not in that business and there are no plans to be in that business right now." He backed up his point by saying;"If I believe, which I do, in the social aspects of gaming, at the furthest end of the gaming spectrum against that is handheld gaming, because that's a very solitary, time-killing activity. He continued with his point further. "It's not something you share - we believe that the future is the social element of gaming, and that's going to be done through a console, not through a handheld gaming device."

While speaking of connectivity Peter Moore insulted Nintendo's tactics stating; "When I was at Sega we did that [GC/GBA connectivity] with Sonic Advance - and the consumer went [shrugs shoulders] big deal! Someone's yet to explain to me the value of hooking up your handheld device to your console." To add to his attacks on Nintendo he continued. "If somebody can tell me what the value of [connectivity] is, I'm all for it."

Nintendo may respond to Peter Moores comments but any official response has not been given at present.

Staff Comments:

Ash:

While I myself have never used the connectivity I expect to at some point with more games supporting it. I do think Nintendo are pushing it a bit too much but they are not the only ones, EA seem to like the idea aswell. I personally do not care about online gaming (which isn't such a big hit, in the UK only 50,000 people have signed on for Xbox Live and Sony only getting 3000 subscribers in the UK). He complains about the lack of intrest in Sonic's connectivity but some more advertising would of helped and it was a Chao (correct me if I'm wrong) which is hardly the best thing ever. I think despite how you feel when you are representing a company who is determined to be seen as "the grown up company" with "mature games" insulting other companies with petty words is not the best route.