Reggie on Wii U’s competition, people now understand it’s a new console, publisher relationships, more
Forbes has put up a new interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. Wii U’s competition and third-party support were discussed, as was the issue of people not understanding the system is a new console – which Reggie believes has been addressed.
You can find Reggie’s full comments below. Forbes’ full piece can be found here.
On how Reggie rates Nintendo’s chances for success this holiday…
We rate our chances very good. Software drives hardware in this business. We see it time and time again. We saw it with our Wii and DS businesses. We’re seeing it right now with Nintendo 3DS. It was probably a year ago, I was having similar meetings to these, when the challenge was, “Reggie, what are you doing with your handheld business? How are you gonna grow it?” Well, we bring our great franchises to bear, and watch what happens. Software drives hardware. And we’re having a stellar year. We believe the same will happen with our Wii U business, with these fantastic franchises that we’re bringing to bear this holiday.
On how gamers tend to get distracted by shiny new objects…
That’s very true. But the interesting thing there is, if you look at the last two hardware cycles, it was not the most powerful machine that won, not in the case of the PS2, not in the case of the Wii. So, in the end, it’s our responsibility to show consumers how much fun you can have, because in the end, this is an entertainment business, and we think we’ve got stellar entertainment to make the consumer smile.
On whether Nintendo faces a marketing challenge due to the other new consoles…
So that’s where we’re taking our message right to the consumer. To be clear, we’re getting fantastic retailer support, whether it’s GameSpot, whether it’s WalMart, whether it’s ToysRUs, Best Buy, Target… all of the key retailers are giving us exceptional support. But in the end, we know we’ve got to take our message right to the consumer. We’re doing that with sampling events. We’re doing more hand held sampling events this year than we’ve done in the past. We’re doing it with our overall marketing activity, and not just the traditional TV activity, but web activity, social media activity. And in the end we’ve got to show the fun that you can have with our devices. And we’re convinced if we do that we’ll generate the word of mouth, and we’ll generate the excitement that’ll drive us through the holiday.
On whether there’s still an issue of people not understanding Wii U is a new console…
That issue has been largely addressed, I think, as we’ve told consumers all the great things you could do with the GamePad as we’ve showed fantastic software like Pikmin 3, and Wonderful 101, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker in HD. The consumer I believe now understands this is a brand new system with brand new capabilities. It has all of the benefits of backward compatibility. And we’re the only next gen system with backward compatibility, so the consumer has this great library of games from Wii, can use them with the Wii U. But now they understand all of the new capabilities that they can have.
Nintendo’s reason why someone should buy a Wii U from a multimedia entertainment standpoint…
It’s all about these great franchises. This is the place to get Mario, to get Zelda, to get Donkey Kong. And, we’ve got fantastic entertainment experiences. You can watch Netflix in HD, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu Plus. It’s all there. But what we do on top of that is, we’ve got Nintendo TV, that lets you sort out and decide what it is that you want to watch based on all of the different services you subscribe to. So our pitch is we’ve got unique differentiators, versus the “I do everything” positioning that our competitors might have.
On what Nintendo can do to show people Nintendo TVii and get them to understand the Wii U’s capabilities…
I want to be clear that first and foremost we’ve gotta drive people into the proposition with the franchises and software we have. That’s the main differentiator. We believe once they have the system, or once they’re interested in the system, helping them understand the benefits of Nintendo TV is a nice supporting point. And as we’re out in malls and other places having consumers get hands-on experiences, we’re gonna be showcasing those capabilities. But first and foremost it’s about the games. That’s our proposition.
On whether relying on its franchises is a weakness for Nintendo…
It’s tough to call a 10 million franchise a weakness. It’s something consumers have come to expect, have come to desire. It is an ace in our hand that we love to play. And it’s a differentiator. The point that I keep coming back to is show me the differentiated experiences. And differentiated experiences in this entertainment business win. We’re differentiated with the GamePad. We’re differentiated with these fantastic franchises. We’re differentiated even in the entertainment space with Nintendo TV. We believe those will drive our performance now and into the future.
On how much will the fact that the Wii U costs less than an Xbox One or PlayStation 4 be a sales driver for Nintendo…
We think it’s certainly a consideration. As I look back on the effectiveness of the Wii, our value equation was stellar. Now the Wii U, the value equation here is also stellar. Depending on the bundle you choose, typically two games included in the bundle, games that highlight the GamePad, free services like Nintendo TV, like Miiverse, it’s a differentiated proposition. And when you look at the cost of entry into our platform, it’s a tremendous value versus our competition.
On how much Nintendo expects the development landscape to change for Wii U over the next year (question also claimed there is more indie content on other platforms)…
I would challenge that statement. And in fairness I haven’t counted them up, but I know this: If we fire up a Nintendo 3DS or a Nintendo 2DS and go into the e-shop, our merchandising shelves are full. And there’s a tremendous amount of independent developer content on that system, and the same with Wii U.
I think what the development community is really excited about is the discoverability that we offer with our merchandising platform, and with the fact that our games are there, available on the e-shop right along side theirs.
On Nintendo’s relationship with big publishers…
It’s all about driving the installed base. With a healthy and vibrant installed base, those key publishers are gonna create content that are going to be wonderful for the system. Case in point: Activision. One of the number one rated games [recently] on the Wii U is Skylander SWAP Force. They’ve done a stellar job creating that content. And absolutely we look forward to Call of Duty coming on the platform. A true Call of Duty experience, leveraging unique play with the GamePad. You look at someone like Ubisoft. They do tremendous business with Just Dance on our platform. And we look forward to Assassin’s Creed, we look forward to Watchdogs next year coming on the platform. Warner Brothers… I could go through the list in terms of key software publishers that are making great content for the platform. And what they tell me every day is, “Reggie, how can I help you drive your installed base?”
In the end, what developers want is a healthy ecosystem to create content and launch it into. And that’s what we’ve gotta deliver. And we’re fortunate we’re delivering that right now with Nintendo 3DS, which is why we have so many publishers excited about that platform. We need to do that now with Wii U. And it’s gonna be key franchises like Mario 3D World, like Zelda: Wind Waker that are gonna help us drive that during this holiday time.
On Nintendo’s inventory for the Christmas season…
There better not be. [Laughter] It’s one of these things where the production pipelines are long. And we do our best effort to minimize any stock outages. But in the end if there’s a mad consumer rush for a Nintendo 2DS, if there’s a mad consumer rush for Wii U, we’ll have to deal with that accordingly. But as I sit here today we should be in great shape.
