Iwata further teases Quality of Life plans
Posted on February 3, 2014 by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata shared a few more words about the company’s upcoming Quality of Life plans during the Q&A portion of its investor briefing last week. Look for his comments below.
As for the QOL (Quality of Life)-improving platform, I made some slides which explain how Nintendo came up with this idea. These are examples of something ordinary turning into a hit product with the power of applications. In 1980, we released “GAME & WATCH,” which, I am told, was an idea that was born from watching people use calculators. “GAME & WATCH” was made by adding an application to a watch, and this is the origin of the current handheld games. In 1998, adding an application to a pedometer gave birth to a very small handheld game called “Pokémon Pikachu.” Also, and this may be still fresh in your minds, by adding an application to scales, we made “Wii Fit.” When we talk about “health,” it often involves measuring something and showing the results, but if we add an application to something, maybe this application would encourage people to continue in an enjoyable way, and we feel that we can use our strengths in this area. I mentioned that I would like to redefine the notion of entertainment as something that improves people’s QOL in enjoyable ways, and “enjoyable ways” come from the power of applications. There are many players in this market, but Nintendo is one of the few that make both hardware and software, offer and deliver propositions to people throughout the world, and make people enjoy and continue playing with them, so we think we have a great deal of possibilities ahead of us. I am not planning to announce any specific themes today, but to give you a hint, “non-wearable” does not necessarily mean it is something that will be used in the living room. I apologize for not being clear, but please allow me to leave it at that today. I will explain in detail when the time comes.
