UK, July 17, 2007 - Thanks to the incredible success of the DS, it's possible Nintendo may be waving good bye to the Game Boy - which has been going strong since 1989 - as George Harrison confirms the company may never return to one of its best know brands.
Speaking to GameDaily BIZ, senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications George Harrison revealed: "This year in our marketing you really won't see much push against Game Boy itself, so it will kind of seek its own level. It's hard to say in the future if we will ever bring back the Game Boy trademark."
Back in 2005, Nintendo launched the DS as the 'third pillar' of its hardware line-up, alongside Game Boy and its home console. However, the DS's meteoric rise has apparently put the kibosh on any plans to release a Game Boy Advance 2.
However, Harrison noted that dropping the Game Boy name in favour of the untested DS brand wasn't an easy decision. "It was a big risk for us to actually pass on it and call the new product the Nintendo DS," he revealed, "but it was part of Mr. Iwata's philosophy that if we're going to make a radical difference and try to reach a new audience, then we have to change the name... we had to make a break even though we had one of the greatest trademarks in the history of the industry."
(Since I lost my gbp)