Japanese website Yukan Fuji has posted a recent interview with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. In the interview, Iwata shares some thoughts on 2007 and discusses overall strategy for 2008.
To quote Mr. Iwata: “Thanks to everyone, last year was a good year. The Nintendo DS crossed the 20 million mark [that’s in Japan only, worldwide the number is over 54 million], which has been called the limit for game hardware sales. We put in a lot of effort, but we also had a stronger than expected tail wind. To say ‘we expected it to sell’ would be vain. If we had known the Wii and DS would expand so dramatically in such a short time, we wouldn’t have had shortages, nor would we have had to raise our financial forecasts.”
President Iwata showed a soft side when Fuji made note of press coverage suggesting that product shortages were a part of Nintendo’s strategy. Mr. Iwata replied to this with: “[When I see those types of articles], I honestly feel sad. Game machine production amounts are set about half a year in advance, so they cannot be easily changed. The concept of the Wii is ‘a machine that makes people who play it smile.’ We wouldn’t use a strategy that is at odds with smiling. Getting as many people as possible to show us their smiles when playing a Nintendo game — that’s the energy source that drives us.”
To a question asking what Nintendo’s goals for the new year is, Iwata replied: “This year we will release a new system. That is, of course, a joke. Our goal is to show our ‘answer’ to how to make sure the game population that has increased through the Wii and DS doesn’t end as a short-lived boom. Even with the DS, there are still things left to do.”
“Things grow bad the moment they’re left in the same position,” explained Iwata. “In particular, people can grow tired of entertainment such as games, so in order to make sure the consumers who took up the DS and Wii don’t lose interest, new ideas like Wii Fit will become essential from here on out.
IGN translated his last strong words for 2008 were: “This year, we’ll try a number of things to keep the game population expansion continuing.”