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Nintendo: Wii Music needs to 'clear the hurdle'
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has no problem admitting Wii Music didn't live up to the company's expectations, but he doesn't want you to consider it a failure, either. During a recent Q&A session, he spoke about the company's hopes regarding Wii Music, as well as the difficulty Nintendo has had with consumer reception."There are people who highly appreciate it and those who do not appreciate it at all," Iwata said, adding that perceptions can be changed. It's all about word of mouth to him, as he said, "A cycle is born where people who have hands-on experience can immediately understand its appeal, easily explain the positive experience they had to those around them, who then spread that information to the others." That works, unless you're a blog who pretty unanimously hated it and told everyone how you felt. With Wii Music, the company was never able to achieve this "positive cycle," and Iwata says Nintendo now needs to "reevaluate" why it hasn't been able to "clear that hurdle." Nintendo, here's a protip from us: Emphasize that it has a dog suit and beatboxing. You might sell a few extra copies if you push that.
Iwata: new Western Touch Generations games, Wii SD update still on the way
Following last week's Nintendo financial report, the company has just posted a translation of the investor Q&A session with president Satoru Iwata. Iwata had plenty to say -- there is a very high ratio of A to Q. Talking about the downward revision of sales forecasts, Iwata classified the Japanese market as "???the least robust market in the world today with regard to home console systems," due in part to an "an overall lifestyle shift where many forms of entertainment are enjoyed while on the go or during spare time."Moving on to the worldwide market, Iwata expressed an interest in developing new products to appeal more to Western interests. He revealed that Nintendo is "working on U.S. and Europe-originated Touch Generations products, which may have a smaller demand in Japan than overseas." "One or two" of these new games will be out this year. He also revealed that the hit Wagamama Fashion Girls Mode would be released internationally.Iwata confirmed that the DSi will not sell for the same price as the DS Lite in America and Europe, citing "current foreign currency exchange rates." He did not identify specific prices.The SD storage update, which allows downloaded content to be saved directly to SD, is still on the way in the spring, but Iwata did not date it. He said that the program Nintendo announced for Japan, offering 500 Wii Points to customers who help friends take their Wiis online, would start concurrently with this update.
Iwata: Total DS install base could reach 152.2 million units
If the standard laws of the five-year console cycle apply to Nintendo's money-printing handheld, then said laws would dictate that the lifespan of the Nintendo DS (in its many, many forms) is nearing its end. The system's current install base of 84.1 million across the U.S., Japan and Europe is hardly anything to scoff at, and would certainly earn the device some form of lifetime achievement award at its retirement gala -- but according to Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, the DS will break the standard five-year cycle, and further expand its install base in the years to come.Iwata claims that should interest in the DS expand in the U.S. and Europe as it did in Japan (where nearly one in every five people currently tote the handheld), the system's install base will nearly double -- his estimate for the handheld's final tally is a nice, round 152.2 million units. That's ... a pretty specific number. We're not usually one for conspiracy theories, but we're wondering if that estimate isn't, you know, time machine-assisted.
Satoru Iwata to deliver GDC 2009 keynote
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata will be putting his oratorical skills to the test, delivering a keynote entitled "Discovering New Development Opportunities" at this year's Game Developers Conference. There are no other details provided, and trying to discern any surprise announcements based on that speech title is pretty much a fruitless endeavor.Iwata last gave a GDC keynote in 2006, when he showed Brain Age and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Company man Miyamoto gave the 2007 speech and revealed ... the Everybody Votes Channel. As for last year, the House of Mario's presence was limited to a handful of sessions. Get your bingo cards ready, Iwata's keynote is set for Monday, March 25 at 9 a.m. PST (that's noon, Joystiq Standard Time).
Iwata still sees vast market for current DS hardware
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has dispelled rumblings that the global games market has become over saturated with the DS Lite, hence the roll-out of the DSi. In an interview with Japanese paper Daily Yumiuri, Iwata pointed out that, for example, only 18% of people in Japan own a DS. "Some say the market for the DS is saturated, but I disagree. In Japan, a country with a population of 127 million, we've sold 23 million DS units," he told the paper. "The United States is inhabited by over 300 million people, and there are more than 490 million people in the European Union. Sales of the product could grow further in foreign countries considering their populations." That's a big blue ocean.So then, DS won't die until every last man, woman, and child on Earth owns one. Or something like that. Oh, and a DSi. Iwata's dream is of a world where "each family member will have his or her own DSi with their favorite software installed." That's a big dream.[Via Edge Online]
Wii serious business during Thanksgiving week
Behold what the Wii can do when it's actually available to shoppers. During last year's Thanksgiving holiday week, the console shifted 350,000 units in the U.S., even though shortages were pretty major at the time. With more Wiis in stores this year, that number jumped to 800,000. In a single freakin' week. To put that in perspective, Nintendo sold 803,000 Wiis in the whole of October. Italics. Yikes.Satoru Iwata broke the happy news in an interview with Reuters, adding that "When the economy is strong, people tend to buy three things from the top of their wishlist. But when things are bad, people often buy only the first thing on their list. Fortunately for us a lot of shoppers put our products at the top of their list." That's a pretty sizeable "nyah!" to the competition.[Via Joystiq]
Top 5: Say What?
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Top_5_Nintendo_Corporation_Quotes'; Ahh, the quote. Whether used to end an essay or defame a political opponent, the quote is a very versatile tool. Particularly in the era of blogging, every word that escapes a well-known figure's mouth has the potential to be immediately flung back at them. It's quite scary to look back on conversations I've had and consider the possibility of quotes of mine being used to define my character as a whole. In fact, judgement of character based on a quote can even usurp the validity of the quote itself. Conventional wisdom asserts that singer Lauryn Hill once made a statement to the effect of "I'd rather have my children starve than have a white person buy my album." While this is simply not true, the false statement has been cited by those who would define Hill as a racist. Even Eminem supported the fallacy in a song whose title I won't mention. Being over a century old, Nintendo is bound to have a few interesting quotes attributed to them. Coupled with a philosophy that is undoubtedly unique and perhaps offbeat, the Big N is not lacking in the department of ear-catching statements. Two weeks ago, I made a Top 5 in which I tried to downplay any tension between Nintendo and its fans. This week, I'm providing cheap ammunition. Enjoy. NEXT >> #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } The Top 5 is a weekly feature that provides us with a forum to share our opinions on various aspects of the video game culture, and provides you with a forum to tell us how wrong we are. To further voice your opinions, submit a vote in the Wii Fanboy Poll, and take part in the daily discussions of Wii Warm Up.
Iwata asks Development Folk about Animal Crossing
"Iwata Asks" articles are almost as old as the Wii itself, coinciding as they do with any notable first-party release, and the latest round of questioning stars four of the Animal Crossing: City Folk team: Aya Kyougoku (who forgot to wear her regulation beige Nintendo jacket for this), Ryuji Kobayashi, Isao Moro and Kou Nogami (not pictured here).Most of the discussion focuses on fairly obscure minutiae. So Nogami discusses how WiiConnect24 allows for the exchange of village data without you knowing it, which means people can visit a friend's village while their Wii is off, as can NPCs from other villages, who may then spread rumors from their hometown. The team estimates the game's appeal becomes "two or three times" as great when played online, a statement we look forward to testing.We're also told that City Folk will let players create "trails" on the landscape. Apparently, the ground in your village consists of a top layer of grass which slowly wears thin the more you walk on it. A little grass grows back at the end of each day, but if you walk over a certain area enough (say, from your house to Tom Nook's), a trail will begin to form. Kobayashi says that it takes about a fortnight before a faint path becomes visible, and Moro adds that a clear trail will have appeared after two months, but that grass grows back more speedily if surrounded by grass and trees. Nifty![Via andriasang.com]
No kidding: Iwata doesn't like price drops
It's one of the game industry's strangest quirks: as any console ages, it becomes both more worthy (as it gains a wider library of games) and cheaper. But not the Wii, by the sounds of it. In case you still didn't know after two years of Nintendo hardware holding its price, Nintendo overlord Satoru Iwata doesn't like price drops. Cutting prices, argues Iwata, is the same as telling potential customers to wait and save some cash, something he "always thought was a mistake."It's nothing to do with money, though, oh no. It's about treating consumers equally and fairly. Further on in the interview, Iwata explains that early adopters shouldn't feel like they've bought something at a loss. There's definitely a PS3 joke to be cracked here, but we ain't going there.[Via Kotaku]
New Art Style, WarioWare on DSiWare shop starting December, plus first look at Made in Ore
Nintendo buried some awesome news in the slides for their financial briefing today. With just one day until the Japanese launch of the DSi, we finally get a brief look at some upcoming downloadable DSiWare software. Nintendo plans to release six Art Style puzzle games on the service, for 500 points each. Of the four games shown in screens, all are brand new. One features a flat surface being folded into cubes, one looks like sort of a flat Rubik's Cube, one features a little guy walking around and specifying where to drop cubes, and one features three columns of colored blocks that the player shifts around.A brand new WarioWare will be available from the shop at launch for 500 Points. Utsusu! Made in Wario (Take a Picture! Made in Wario, basically) uses the camera to involve your pictures (and your live motions!) in microgames.In addition to Utsutsu!, minigames from previous WarioWare titles, like Paper Plane, will be available as separate downloads from the DSi Shop for 200 Points each. Also on the way: a Japanese train line map and guide software.It's not a DSiWare game, but Iwata also showed off a bit of Made in Ore, (at about 44 minutes), which is a full-on WarioWare microgame creation utility! You can draw sprites, create music, and even design the logic of the in-game elements, saving your microgames to virtual Famicom cartridges. There will even be a WiiWare game, Asobu! Made in Ore (Play! Made in Me), that allows you to upload your games to the Wii and play them with friends! Allow us to be absolutely clear: this is the greatest event in human history.To see the DSiWare stuff, scroll to the "DSiWare" slide (using the second button) and start the video (third button) to look at the footage for yourself, or head to Vooks for a series of screen captures![Via NeoGAF]
Iwata and staff discuss Nintendo DSi development, rumors of SDHC support abound
The latest entry in the "Iwata Asks" series has returned with an up-close look at the Nintendo DSi. For this exercise, Iwata carefully prepared a pot of green tea (possibly), sat down with three chaps from Nintendo's technology division (definitely), Yui Ehara, Kentaro Santa, and Masato Kawabara, and then talked some DSi.As usual, all sorts of interesting nuggets get dropped. Apparently, a new DS was discussed in late-2006 (just a few months after the DS Lite launched!), the chipset was basically completed by February 2007, and for quite some time the DSi was going to have one rotating camera, and two cartridge slots. As it happens, Iwata was concerned that a rotating device would break easily, and believed the extra cartridge slot made the DSi too big, so both got the chop.There was also some brief discussion of the DSi supporting SD cards. Supposedly, it was Shigeru Miyamoto himself who requested this feature, promising that he'd find a way to utilize it. In related news, a DSi spec sheet has appeared at NeoGAF with the SDHC logo on it, suggesting the new handheld supports the extended SD format. The DSi may only be two days away, but there's clearly plenty we're still not aware of!Source: Iwata asks!Source: Spec sheet hints! %Gallery-33263%[Via Tiny Cartridge]
Wii Warm Up: What's 'very affordable' for you?
Iwata's interview yesterday definitely sparked some debate within our little community here, but it would seem a lot of you didn't exactly chime in with your own thoughts on 'very affordable.' So, what price point would you like to see Wii MotionPlus set at? Is $20 a sweet spot? Would you mind paying as much as $30? Weigh in!
Iwata says Nintendo plans to go easy on the accessories for now
Apparently not willing to let things get to the point that someone has to step in and say, "enough already," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently told The Wall Street Journal that the company will be easing up on the number of accessories it releases for the Wii. More specifically, he said that, with the upcoming release of the Wii MotionPlus and Wii Speak add-ons, "most of the ideas for accessories that we had initially come up with are out now," and that while they "might think up some more," they "don't have any plans to release a whole lot more." Of course, we're guessing that's not a sentiment echoed by third-party manufacturers, who we're sure we can count on to keep on cluttering up the living rooms of Wii owners the world over.[Via Joystiq]
MotionPlus to be 'very affordable,' Wii add-ons curtailed for now
The Wii has long been heralded as the cheapest console out there, but that claim soon weakens if you want to own every add-on that is available for the platform. Nintendo seems to recognize that Wii ownership is getting increasingly pricey, and now company bossman Satoru Iwata has said: no more add-ons!Okay, so he didn't quite make that promise. But Iwata has told the Wall Street Journal that "most of the ideas for accessories that we had initially come up with are out now." If you can hear sighing, that'll be our wallets, though don't get comfy right away: Iwata has warned that Nintendo might think up more, presumably once the company's bank balance has dipped below the danger level of one trillion-gazillion* dollars.Iwata also confirmed that Nintendo would try and make the Wii MotionPlus "very affordable," an attainable goal considering that the add-on is apparently cheap to make. There will also be games that can only be played with a MotionPlus plugged in -- beginning, we'd assume, with Wii Sports Resort.* Possibly not a real number.%Gallery-27709%[Via Edge; thanks, supa_s!]
Iwata: Nintendo may slow down the new peripheral parade
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata recently had a little chit-chat with the Wall Street Journal, letting it know that his company's plethora of purchasable peripherals polluting shelves could possibly slow down. The WSJ points out that Nintendo recently unveiled the Wii Motion Plus and Wii Speak to go with its other pieces of plastic, ready to fill a landfill near you, like Wii Fit, Wii Zapper and the Wii Wheel. Iwata states that the accessories the company originally had planned for the Wii are all out now, but that doesn't mean it's going to stop ... it just currently doesn't have plans to release many more.Iwata also covers some other items briefly, saying that the company plans to offer the Wii Motion Plus "for as little as possible." Considering it'll be necessary for games like Wii Sports Resort and the absurd amount of money the company is currently making, that seems like a reasonable thing to do. [Via Edge]
Pachter: DS successor could be introduced this year
Wedbush Morgan's infamous fortune teller Michael Pachter is at it again, this time predicting that a successor to Nintendo's money-printing DS could arrive as early as this year (via Edge Online). In investor notes, Pachter said, "DS sales are solid worldwide, but are weak in Japan, leading us to expect an introduction of a new device in Japan before the end of the calendar year." Looking at the Japanese hardware sales, the PSP has overtaken the DS almost every week this year with few exceptions.The logic falls in line with recent comments from Nintendo's Satoru Iwata, who said a Wii successor would come only when the Wii itself begins to slow in sales (read: unlikely for some time). If a new Nintendo portable is to be announced, our best guess would be an announcement at October's Tokyo Game Show. That's assuming Nintendo can swim their way out of that kingdom-sized pool of cash.
Nintendo actually not resting on its laurels, already working on the Wii's successor
No need to phone in the shock police -- you had to know this was coming. After all, what kind of stockholder-pleasing company would Nintendo be if it wasn't already thinking about how to top the Wii? According to information in a recent Forbes piece surveying the field of gaming consoles, Nintendo is "already working on the Wii's successor." President Satoru Iwata shared that the Big N was "always preparing for the next hardware," though it would be unwise to expect said hardware anytime soon. With Wii consoles still hard (or at least not "easy") to come by in some locales, we'd say Nintendo is in no hurry to move beyond its current cash cow. Still, even Iwata admits that it "will be difficult" to exceed expectations now that the Wii has proven so successful. Not really, though -- throw in high-def support and you've got an entirely more lovable machine.[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
No duh: Nintendo already working on next console
During a Forbes piece that takes a look at the future of gaming, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that Nintendo is already working on their next console. The likelihood that we could actually see or be told anything concrete about it is nonexistent, however. Nintendo's current console is both selling far too well and, we imagine, development of their newest console is in the earliest stages, considering the Wii hasn't been on store shelves for two years yet."We are always preparing for the next hardware," Iwata said. "We are under development. ... But the hardware is a kind of box that consumers reluctantly buy in order to play our games." Well, we wouldn't say reluctantly, because most people seem to be more than happy to pick up a Wii. In terms of future specs, Iwata commented that every new piece of hardware "needs some revolutionary features." He also added that "This time around, it happened to be we had a revolutionary user interface. Will it be the same for the next generation? I really can't tell." Considering what the company did with the Wii, we're totally expecting bigger and better things from Nintendo.President Iwata also went on to comment about how hard it is for them to innovate beyond what they've done this generation. "It's natural for the current customer to expect Nintendo is going to once again do something different. If the people are expecting so many different things from Nintendo, it's going to be difficult for us to go beyond that expectation again."[Thanks, Joe!]
Iwata: iPhone not a threat
Think Nintendo overlord Satoru Iwata is bothered by suggestions that Apple's iPhone poses a threat to the DS? Then think again, chump!Speaking to Forbes, Iwata admitted that he uses the iPhone himself, and regards the device as an attractive product. Yet in the Nintendo President's eyes, the iPhone and DS are just about different enough to find their own markets. "When I look carefully at the iPhone's users vs. the users of our Nintendo DS, I understand there are some overlaps," remarked Iwata-san, cool as a cucumber. "And if you ask 'Is the overlap too big?,' my answer is no, not so much."We're right behind Iwata on this one. People aren't about to suddenly drop the 70 million DSes sold worldwide to date, and let's not forget how the DS convincingly beat another sleek, multimedia device to occupy top spot.
Iwata 'sorry' for Nintendo E3 briefing; Wii supplies may still be tight this holiday
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has apologized for the approach the company took at this year's E3 press conference and the perception that it has abandoned the "core gamers." He tells Forbes that the feelings of neglect Nintendo fans might be feeling is a "misunderstanding" and the company wants to "get rid of that misunderstanding by any means." Iwata explains "big titles" require time and Nintendo didn't think this was the year to announce any.The other thing Iwata's conversation with Forbes covers is the continuing Wii supply shortage in the US. The CEO expresses that Nintendo is 100% committed to having Wii be available this holiday, but can't make any guarantee. He believes the best he can do right now is say the company is doing its best to supply the States with consoles.
