The Nintendo brass is questioned on Wii, DS, the gaming industry and a whole lot more in a Q&A session with investors.
Earlier this month, Nintendo Co. Ltd. (that's Nintendo Japan) held a management briefing for investors to lay down the company's plans for the the future. A video of the presentation is available, but we've already reported on the intersting stuff from that part of the meeting.
Recently, Nintendo translated the post-meeting Q&A session and made it available to the public. There are some interesting comments and nuggets of information contained within, but it's a lengthy read. Luckily, PGC has read it for you; here are some of the choice bits of info and quotes from the Q&A.
- Nintendo is looking to offer Wii development kits to developers "at an inexpensive price, say, at little more than 200,000 yen." That translates to around $1,800.
- Nintendo President Satoru Iwata on publishers releasing games at a high price and then lowering it soon after: "...if the suggested retail price of any and all software is marked down in 6 months or 9 months, the customers will learn the cycle and wait for the discounting, which will simply aggravate the decreasing sales of new software."
- Nintendo has previously said the Wii will be a failure if it can't outsell the GameCube. Iwata goes one step beyond that: "...we shouldn't continue this business if our only target is to outsell GameCube. Naturally, we are making efforts so that Wii will show a far greater result than GameCube."
- Mr. Iwata again, this time on the company's E3 showing: "When the brasses at major publishers visited the Nintendo booth, they used to see games by crossing their arms at the tail end of the crowds. This year, the majority of these top executives were the first people to hold and swing the Wii Remote to play. I was really impressed."
- Worldwide, Nintendo is aiming to ship out 6 million Wii hardware and 17 million Wii games by the end of their fiscal year in April.
- Nintendo wants more simple games in the vein of WiiSports to be available at or shortly after launch. Also, the firm is considering offering the games as pack-ins or even downloadable over the Virtual Console service.
- Shigeru Miyamoto was asked about the Wii's apparent lack of processing power compared to the competition. His response? "What we are trying to do is to create brand new freestyle entertainment that can be enjoyed by all the family members as well as by a single player. In making such entertainment, I have never felt stress about the power of Wii. Honestly, I have not been able to use 100% of GameCube's power yet, so I am very happy with Wii's far superior functionality."
The Q&A has a few more interesting comments in there, with topics covering the DS Lite and a possible Microsoft handheld. If what we've covered here isn't enough to satisfy your curiosity, then hit the link to the Q&A at the top of the page and read if for yourself.