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Nintendo speech in full, we'd hoped for more on the Revolution!

by Steven Williamson on 24 March 2006, 09:28

Tags: Nintendo Wii, Nintendo (TYO:7974), Wii

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Nintendo speech



Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's full keynote speech:

Thank you so much for giving me the honor of speaking before you again this year. In my job, I have to talk to a lot of people, but as you all know, since I still have the heart of a gamer, I have the most fun talking to you!

Once upon a time, way back in the 1980 s, a company became number one because its products meant fun to young people. Then, in the 1990 s, a bigger company with a bigger brand name and bigger budgets took away the number one spot.

Fortunately, that first company also had another line of products that let it remain popular and profitable. This company used that threat to reconsider its strategy, and think how it could regain overall leadership. And this is what it decided.

It would redefine its own business, and expand its market beyond current core users. Could this strategy work?

Well, we already know the answer. The answer is yes.

Because that first company, Pepsi, has returned to number one in its industry displacing Coke. Pepsi stopped asking, How can we sell more cola? Instead, it started asking, What else do people want to drink?

Today, Pepsi is number one in bottled water. It is number one in sports drinks. It is number one in health drinks. And, of course, it remains number one in the snacks business that it used to maintain profitability while they executed their disruptive strategy. (As every game developer understands, the three basic food groups are Fritos, Cheetos and Doritos.)

I am here today to share some stories about Nintendo. But, I begin with a story about Pepsi because it demonstrates how thinking differently, and holding strongly to your strategy, can disrupt an entire industry and in a good way.

For some time, we have believed the game industry is ready for disruption. Not just from Nintendo, but from all game developers. It is what we all need to expand our audience. It is what we all need to expand our imaginations.

Several years ago, when I began talking about reaching out to casual gamers and non-gamers, few people listened. Today, Nintendo DS is succeeding in disrupting the handheld market in fact, you could attribute most industry growth last year to just this one product line. Now, people are listening more closely.

I know many of you smiled when we demonstrated Nintendogs at the GDC last year, but I m sure not many of you believed it could sell 6 million copies around the world in less than a year.

But the success of DS is not based on just one game; it is the story of several new kinds of software creating brand new players.

Let me explain how disruption is working for us. Most of you are very familiar with the American market, so let me share some information about Japan.

When it launched in 2001, Playstation 2 sold 6 million units in its first 21 months. Soon after, our Game Boy ® Advance did even better, reaching 6 million in 20 months. But Nintendo DS is selling at a much faster pace than any game system in Japanese history. We have reached sales of 6 million systems in just 14 months. And, this number would be far higher if production could keep up with demand.

In part, the DS success is due to how we redefine better technology with unique hardware features. But more importantly, the disruption of Nintendo DS comes from how software takes advantage of the hardware.

Over the last year, no software has created more discussion (or more surprise) than our brain games. The first brain training game, which launched 10 months ago, has sold 1.97 million units. The second brain training game, which only launched the last week of last year, has already sold over 1.8 million units.

I have been asked many times how we decided to develop these games so I thought maybe this is the first story I should share with you today. Where did this idea come from? I m sure you can guess it started where all great creative ideas begin from a board of directors!

When Atsushi Asada was a member of our Executive Committee, he complained that he knew no one his age who played video games. Because Japan is an aging society, he thought a game designed just for seniors might work.

I agreed it was a good start, but I said it might be a mistake to target only seniors. Instead, maybe something that would appeal to other users, as well.

This meeting occurred just after the E3 show two years ago a very busy time for us. We were finalizing the Nintendo DS hardware, as well as preparing DS launch games. Even so, I asked each of our four main development groups to nominate a few people to serve on a task force.

Some of them did not have much experience making games, so I got to play the role of professor, talking to them not just about games, but about overall product planning. The goal of the task force was to invent a game whose appeal would include everyone from youngsters to baby boomers to seniors.