Generally speaking, when Iwata talks the industry listens and post E3 everyone listens that bit more intentively.
So, what we are focusing upon is not only the current gamers, but also those who are not playing with video games at all. That is our goal, so that's why we are not caring so much about our competition with Sony or with Microsoft. We do not care if we can [beat] Sony or if we can [beat] Microsoft or if we can win in the current market-share battle in the same arena at all. That's not our focus. Our focus is whether or not we can increase the game population.
So yet more confirmation that Nintendo are not competing with the other 2 big companies. Now onto new things though and when asked about the new rage of ingame advertising he gave a very interesting answer:
Having said that, however, if you ask me whether that kind of approach can become the huge, main resources for the huge, main revenues in the future, I'm not optimistic, actually. ... Asking customers to pay something monthly, or something periodically, we can never expect that kind of revenue to become the significant, main resources for Nintendo.More and more costs are required to make complicated software titles nowadays. So they have to find out any other revenue resources right now, and in-game advertisement must be one of them. However, the in-game advertisement or episodic approaches, [those are] kind of the optional, after all. The main source of the revenue resources in this industry must be the video games themselves.
So could we see adverts in Nintendo games? Gillette and Lynx adboards in Mario Kart? Well, wait and see. The interview ends with an uncharacteristically aggressve and Reggie-esque statement when asked if Ninty would be competing with Sony about how high they price their consoles.
No. Of course, if we put the PS3 as the standard price point, any price point is going to be affordable.
Mr Aime is a bad influence on the usually mild mannered Japanese man!
Stick with C3 for more news and check out the full interview at www.thestreet.com