CantGetAWii
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Japanese site Yukan Fuji posted an interview on the 18th with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata. In the interview, Iwata shares some thoughts on 2007 and discusses overall strategy for the new year.
Since Nintendo is now officially richer than the US government, we're going to refer to Iwata as "President Iwata" for the rest of this story.
The site first made mention of Nintendo's stock price, which rose from 30,000 yen at the start of last year to, at one point, over 70,000 yen. Replied President Iwata, "Thanks to everyone, last year was a good year. The Nintendo DS crossed the 20,000,000 mark, 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."
Nintendo apparently didn't expect the kind of success it's had. Continued the President, "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. "[When I see those types of articles], I honestly feel sad," said Iwata. "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."
Asked for some insight into Nintendo's goals for the new year, 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."
Despite its success, Nintendo doesn't appear ready to enter into a protective mode. "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 loose interest, new ideas like Wii Fit will become essential from here on out."
"This year, we'll try a number of things to keep the game population expansion continuing."
The site closed off by noting that Iwata is "positive as usual." Replied Iwata with laughter. "Yes, I am super positive. In this business (being a company president) if you're not positive, you'll immediately get weakened and won't be able to continue. Also, if I didn't have a positive outlook, I definitely wouldn't be able to say something like 'expand the gaming population.'"
Source:
http://wii.ign.com/articles/846/846613p1.html
