A lot was said this morning as Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata adressed fans and the market following their poor financial showing over the holidays.
Iwata started out by reaffirming that "dedicated video game platforms which integrate hardware and software will remain our core business". Iwata underlined that Nintendo does not want to follow suit (likely referring to the booming mobile market for games), but rather needs to stay ahead of the curve and come up with concept such as the DS and the Wii that are unlike what's already out there.
"Nintendo is not a resource-rich company, with only a little more than 5,000 employees on a consolidated basis. We cannot achieve a strong presence by imitating others and simply competing in terms of size. We have often received advice on overcoming our weaknesses in comparison with other companies and have been questioned about why Nintendo doesn't follow suit when something is already booming."
Iwata went on to talk about the Wii U, a platform he described as "currently in a very difficult position". Iwata said the company had failed to convey the usefulness of the GamePad and that it was a priority to bring out software that takes full advantage of it and that wouldn't be possible without the GamePad. Iwata stated that Shigeru Miyamoto's top priority for the year was to find these uses. Another area where Iwata felt improvement was need was the use of Wii U's NFC (near-field communication), and he also added that playing without a TV on the GamePad would be further facilitated by quick start options with recently played titles. More on the NFC plans will be revealed at E3 this June. Another news bit is that Virtual Console on Wii U will expand to include Nintendo DS titles.
Mario Kart 8 will see release globally in May and Iwata promised he'll make sure it will be more than a one-off boost.
Moving on to speak about the Nintendo 3DS, things were naturally more upbeat. While the Nintendo 3DS failed to reach Nintendo's lofty projections it still did very well. Iwata noted that having sold 4.9 million units in Japan the last calendar year, together with Nintendo DS it's the only system since the year 2000 with annual sales of more than 4 million. He also noted that the Nintendo 3DS was the "the game device with the highest share" in the US according to NPD. With more than 40 million units sold worldwide Iwata stated they are now being approach by many companies who grew successful concepts on mobile and tablets to bring their games over to Nintendo 3DS. He noted that Puzzle & Dragons Z had sold more than one million copies on 3DS and that Angry Birds Trilogy quickly sold over half a million.
Next Iwata spoke about how Nintendo plans to better integrate and tie together their handheld and stationary platforms via smart devices and the now uniform Nintendo Network-ID. A slide also hinted that this was not just something they planned for the current platforms Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, but something that will also be there for a future handheld and a future console.
Nintendo will be licensing out their character IPs more in the future to try and widen the reach of their brands. Iwata also went on to talk about how "new markets" (presumably referring to the recently opened up Chinese market as one such "new market") is another area that Nintendo will focus on.
Another new area that Nintendo plans to lay claim to is quality of life - health and non-wearables. Keeping things very vague Iwata, but it seems this quality of life stuff will begin in fiscal 2015 when Nintendo aims to "expand the fit population".
"Following others into the exceedingly crowded market of mobile applications or the market of wearable technology that is expected to become increasingly competitive and fighting with brute force is not our way of doing business. Yet again, it is our intention to go into a new blue ocean (this refers to a new business area).
With that said, we wish to achieve an integrated hardware-software platform business that, instead of providing mobile or wearable features, will be characterized by a new area of what we like to call "non-wearable" technology. When we use "health" as the keyword, some may inevitably think about "Wii Fit." However, we are considering themes that we have not incorporated to games for our existing platforms. Including the hardware that will enable such an idea, we will aim to establish a blue ocean."
Nintendo expects this new business to begin to contribute to profits in fiscal 2017 (ending March 2017).
For a full transcript of Iwata's presentation head to the official Nintendo website.