"This year in our marketing you really won't see much push against Game Boy itself," Harrison told GameDaily in an interview. "It's hard to say in the future if we will ever bring back the Game Boy trademark."
"It was a big risk for us to actually pass on it and call the new product the Nintendo DS, 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," he added implying that the "third pillar" strategy was merely used as a marketing backup in case the DS didn't catch on which it obviously has. "We had to make a break even though we had one of the greatest trademarks in the history of the industry."
The news comes as Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed to Kotaku that Nintendo has stopped producing GBA games in favor of complete development for Wii and DS titles. Only third-party game makers continue to support the once-popular handheld line.
The Game Boy brand is the most dominant handheld of all time. To date, all variations (including the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance) have sold a reported 200 million units worldwide.
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