Nintendo Co. announced a partnership with former rivals Thursday intended to boost the library of downloadable classic video games for the company's upcoming Revolution console.
The agreement covers some of the more than 1,000 games made by Sega and Hudson Soft for the now-defunct Sega Genesis console and the TurboGrafx 16 system, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said.
The Revolution's planned "Virtual Console" download service was already expected to also play older Nintendo-made games like "Mario Bros" and "Zelda."
"No one else can match the environment we're creating for expanding the game experience to everyone," said Iwata, speaking at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose. "Our path is not linear, but dynamic."
He did not discuss pricing, availability or other details.
Long before Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. entered the console business, the Genesis and TurboGrafx 16 systems competed with Nintendo's Super NES for video game dominance in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Sega eventually dropped hardware in favor of software. Hudson and NEC Corp. jointly developed the TurboGrafx 16, which had a strong showing in Japan but poor sales in the United States.
Sony unveiled its online strategy for its upcoming PlayStation 3 console Wednesday, saying it would offer new features ranging from video chat and voice communications over the Internet to the ability to purchase and download game or other entertainment content directly to the machine.