March 10, 2005 - During Satoru Iwata's keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, the Nintendo president spotlighted one of the more original, non-game game ideas that the company wishes to bring to the market: Electroplankton, a unique music creation tool for people with no real music skills. A portion of the keynote speech was dedicated to a hands-on with the latest build of the game that's scheduled to ship in Japan next month.

It's clear that Electroplankton is more categorized as a "toy" than a "videogame." In the program, there are several "plankton" which offer a unique musical experience. In one portion of the experience, players can position plankton around the touchscreen, and their location and size determine what types of sounds they produce. In another, players can assign voice to one of four different plankton creatures and have them play back to a drumbeat, creating a unique musical composition using nothing but recorded sounds through the microphone. And in another, players can add sounds and tunes to existing music by tapping on portions of a "plankton" -- in the demo, Bill Trinen of NOA adjusted the familiar Super Mario Bros. theme with extra notes and tunes.

At the very least, Electroplankton is a unique Nintendo DS experience, something not really seen before on a videogame system. It's a concept that's a little hard to explain, which is why we've posted footage from the Keynote speech explaining it in motion. Hit the media link below to watch the demonstration in action.

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