Iwata: “We Need To Redefine What Nintendo Must Do”
Posted on 10 years ago by Jarop(@gamrah) in General Nintendo, News | 30 Comments
It’s no secret that Nintendo’s president and CEO Satoru Iwata has been under the pump in recent months with the company’s current financial standing. In an interview with Japanese news outlet Diamond, Iwata had the following to say about the Nintendo going forward (translated by the folks over at Siliconera):
“Surely, a lot of people around the world must think ‘Nintendo is a company that is just for video games,’ about us, and I believe that there are more and more of our own employees who’ve begun to think like that,” said Iwata. “Some employees that are in charge of making things, are often kept positions where they have to think of how they can make the game in front of them more fun, so I don’t think it can be helped if others outside of our company think like that.”
“So, even if the fact that our focus being video games won’t be changing, I felt the need to take this occasion to say ‘Nintendo is a company that can do whatever they want’.”
“This subject came to light when Yamauchi passed away, but I felt that ‘our surroundings are greatly changing. We need to redefine what Nintendo must do, from this point on’. However, I felt that saying ‘Nintendo will do anything,’ was also the wrong idea for the company.”
“Yamauchi was one to always say ‘Nintendo is a company for entertainment, and it shouldn’t be for anything else,’ and he didn’t necessarily think that ‘entertainment = video games’. I’ve been wondering how to express Yamauchi’s feelings, and I’ve been thinking about it non-stop, even during the New Year’s holiday break.”
“Lately, the words ‘QOL’ (quality of life) have come up,” says Iwata. “Entertainment is there to improve people’s quality of life. After your basic needs, there’s entertainment. However, when it comes to ‘improving people’s quality of life,’ I didn’t know the difference between us and household appliance makers.”
“At the start of this year, I finally figured that ‘improving people’s quality of life with fun,’ with emphasis to the ‘fun’ would be perfect for Nintendo. And that’s when I decided to use this as a focus during the financial results meeting in January and wrote the manuscript for the presentation.”
More: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Satoru Iwata
Tidbits from Nikkei about Nintendo/Iwata – theme park had been planned, Wii U, June an important test
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News, Wii U | 60 Comments
Japanese publication Nikkei posted a new article today covering various bits about Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and the company in general. There isn’t really one particular theme here, but we do hear more about smartphones, a theme park in Kyoto that never came to be, Wii U, June being a big test for Iwata, and more.
Here’s a comprehensive summary of Nikkei’s article:
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Iwata’s updated “Message from the President” covers QOL plans
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 24 Comments
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has left an updated notice for shareholders and investors on the company’s website. Primarily, the “Message from the President” makes strong mention of the Big N’s QOL plans.
You can find the message in full below.
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Iwata Asks: Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Nintendo Pocket Football Club now live
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, 3DS eShop, News | 0 comments
First Nintendo Direct of 2014 coming tomorrow, covers Wii U and 3DS titles for the end of spring 2014
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 35 Comments
Update: Nintendo has confirmed the presentation for Japan in addition to North America and Europe.
A new Nintendo Direct presentation will be streamed tomorrow, Nintendo has announced. This one will be the first presentation of 2014.
An announcement sent out by the company confirms that titles releasing before the end of 2014 will be covered. As usual, Satoru Iwata will be hosting the proceedings, and in the European broadcast, Satoru Shibata will be appearing.
Tomorrow’s presentation will be streamed at 5 PM ET / 2 PM PT. Head past the break for the official announcement.
More: Nintendo Direct, Satoru Iwata, Satoru Shibata, top
Nintendo was initially advised to make Pokemon more monster-like for better sales
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata shared an interesting nugget of information about the Pokemon franchise last week.
Initially, the company was given an indication that the creatures shouldn’t adopt the “cute” aesthetic fans have come to know of today. “This cute yellow thing is not a monster, everyone told us,” Iwata said.
Hiroshi Yamauchi, however, stuck to his guns. Yamauchi was shown mock-ups of a muscular Pikachu, but it didn’t sit well with the former Nintendo president.
“When you adapt too much, you lose what’s unique about you,” Iwata concluded.
More: Hiroshi Yamauchi, Pikachu, Pokemon, Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata on the benefits of integrated hardware-software business model for Nintendo
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments
The final topic tackled by Satoru Iwata during Nintendo’s investor briefing Q&A concerned its focus on producing both hardware and software.
At the end of the day, “pursuing an integrated hardware-software model in which we offer hardware as well as software provides us with more options in the video game industry in terms of surprising consumers.” Iwata reconfirmed that Nintendo will soon house a new building at its headquarters to allow for its hardware and software developers to work more closely developer, and Iwata hopes he will be able to “demonstrate more clearly the synergy effect that comes from developing both hardware and software.”
Read Iwata’s full comments below.
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Iwata on differences between promotion for Wii U and consumer attention in Japan vs. overseas
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 0 comments
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata discussed two important topics for Wii U and how they apply to Japan versus overseas territories last week.
When it comes to promotion for the system, Iwata explained that more resources were devoted to Wii U as opposed to 3DS because Monster Hunter 4 and Pokemon X/Y were able to carry the handheld to a certain extent. Because Nintendo was in a position to properly “focus our energy on communicating Wii U in the year-end sales season”, sales in Japan rose to roughly 100,000 units per week.
Overseas, Nintendo was looking “to boost Nintendo 3DS sales to an explosive level”. The company also needed to provide resources towards Wii U at the same time. “As a result, we were not able to fully focus on promoting either of them,” he admitted. Nintendo originally hoped to “achieve sold sales” for 3DS by the time Pokemon X/Y had arrived and then shift towards Wii U, but “this plan did not work and we had to spread our resources over two platforms.” Additionally, “neither of them achieved explosive sales, a point we need to deeply reflect on.”
On the topic of “consumers’ attention,” Iwata said “there is a difference between the overseas markets in which other companies launched new home consoles, and the Japanese market in which their launches have been held off until this year.”
He continued:
I believe not many consumers wavered between Wii U and those new consoles from other companies because I believe that our user demographics are different to a certain degree. We tried to create a buzz in the overseas markets with Wii U that would encourage many people to look for information about Wii U, making it easier to get our messages across, but this proved to be more difficult than we had expected. I truly need to reflect on the outcome of this year-end sales season, which, in my opinion, was the worst year-end sales season in the overseas markets since I became president, and I would like to bring them back on the right track as soon as possible.
More: sales, Satoru Iwata, top
Iwata on year-end 3DS sales, need to find out why it wasn’t at the top of children’s wish lists
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 6 Comments
The 3DS sold quite well during the last few months of 2013, but it didn’t hit Nintendo’s expectations. Pokemon X/Y provided a solid boost to the system, so Nintendo was “confident about the ultimate sales volume for the end of the year,” according to president Satoru Iwata. In the end though, “sales did not grow as expected.”
Iwata, speaking during the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s investor briefing, mentioned that the 3DS didn’t find itself at the top of children’s wish lists. Given how the 3DS costs somewhere in the range of $150 – $200 for most, and other products are competing for consumers’ dollars for the holiday season, “you need to make sure that your product is at the top of children’s wish lists”.
Keeping all of this in mind, 3DS did show high growth in France for the year-end period. Iwata says Nintendo is currently “examining what was different about France, and we would like to apply our findings to other regions.”
More: sales, Satoru Iwata, top
Even more comments from Iwata about character licensing, won’t license Mario to another company for a Mario game
Posted on 10 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 1 Comment
Even more comments from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata have come in regarding plans for character licensing. Chief among them is a statement from Iwata in which he mentioned, “I do not envisage a scenario in which we would license Mario out to another company to make a Mario video game.”
You can find Iwata’s complete remarks below.
