Iwata: Nintendo not planning more 3DS price drops, robust Wii lineup next year, no smartphone games, more
This information comes from Satoru Iwata, who was interview with Nikkei…
– Iwata says that the 3DS will get an unending steam of major titles from November through the first half of next year
– Iwata described that the initial price was a “hurdle”
– Iwata believes they were able to clear this hurdle through the price drop
– He thinks that the install base will expand significantly during the year end sales season
– No doubts about dropping the 3DS price in the sense that they decided to drop the price after considering all possibilities
– Iwata not sure if dropping the price was the best decision
– He said that it was a move that was realized after consulting and receiving a favorable response from the other management staff
– Nintendo intends for there to be no more price drops
– Iwata believe the business model used until now will suddenly go away due to mobile software
– Nintendo intends to show for the holidays that packaged software is still healthy
– Iwata is not saying that looking long range the package game software business will retain its current share endlessly
– On smartphone development: “This is absolutely not under consideration. If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.”
– Wii saw software lineup holes this year beca
– Wii software lineup had holes in earlier this year due to development delays associated with preparations for launching the 3DS
– Wii lineup to be more robust next year
