13th February 2004, 11:24 AM
http://game-science.com/news/000406.html
Quote: 12:02
Today's Nikkei Newspaper includes a discussion with Nintendo's Yamauchi, as well as an interview with the president of the company, Iwata.
Iwata:
(about the GC)
- The main reason for GC's surge in sales at the end of the year was the price cut
- I heard we even managed to surpass Sony's sales in the US for a moment
- In Europe too, we were up on the previous year
- We have been able to provide proof positive that the GC is not a dying platform
- We were looking for the right time to drop the price from early 2003
(medium term targets)
- Today's games are complex and take time to produce - the age where we would struggle with graphics and memory is over
- How can we expand the industry - the Nintendo DS is one way we are trying to do so
- Yamauchi has the genius perception to see the customers' trends
- I am thinking more from a scientific viewpoint of what we can do to achieve this
(about the next generation)
- I don't think our problems can be solved by just increasing the power of the consoles
- It's not clear what other companies are trying to achieve with their new consoles, we will not make something incomplete just for the sake of it
- Nintendo's hardware development team is thinking about when we should release the next machine
(about online games)
- I wonder how much money companies like Sony and Microsoft are making from this?
- You can't say that appropriate business models are in place yet - customers are also not jumping on board
- But Nintendo doesn't hold a negative view of "net technologies"
- For example, we're thinking about new forms of play using wireless communication
Yamauchi:
- Because of other companies' pricing policies, we had no choice but to cut the price of the GC
- I think the game industry is maturing in different ways to those I imagined
- The industry is displaying certains aspects of being in a crisis
- Gamers don't just want beautiful graphics, sounds and epic stories
- We cannot guarantee interesting and fun games just by using better technology and increasing the functions of the machines
- But makers have plenty of money, so they won't stop making that kind of game
- The truth is, I thought about the idea for DS about 18 months ago
- We plan to show the successor to the GC at next year's E3, even though typical gamers aren't demanding high specs. The people who call it the "next generation" are people who don't know games
- The management are expecting good things from the DS
- If we can increase the scope of the industry, we can re-energise the global market and lift Japan out of depression - that is Nintendo's mission
- If the DS succeeds, we will rise to heaven, but if it fails we will sink to hell
- The next two years will decide Nintendo's fate
- Dual screen games is my final suggestion
- From now on, I won't interrupt management flow, though I can still ask for their strength.