I cannot understand at all why some people come to think that Nintendo has lost its edge as soon as they hear such news that other companies are newly applying for motion sensing technology. If fun and interesting software to take advantage of the technology could be created that easily, a number of other titles which are more fun than Wii Sports must have been already launched for Wii. Why in real life are not so many? The total power factor to combine both the technologies and software at the appropriate level must be the reason why Nintendo has been appreciated in the marketplace, and when someone argues that Nintendo has lost its edge when the actual products have not been launched yet, I feel something must be wrong here.
The same thing can be said about the talks over iPhone and iPod Touch. Some articles suggest that Nintendo is trying to leverage the Nintendo DS business because iPhone and other game machines are gaining momentum. As I explained to you with some data today, it is true that the current Nintendo DS business is not that heated up as it used to be sometime ago, when no one could tell how far ahead Nintendo DS might be able to grow. On the other hand, the data also showed that Nintendo DS has not lost its footing at all. Actually, it has been even increasing its footing all around the world. Under such a circumstance, I do not know why some people make such a remark. I have to feel that, probably, there are people who want to write the story that Nintendo is competing against Apple, and they are picking up fragmented information here and there and connect them to write their own stories. I cannot agree to such an argument. I want to believe that some of you who have listened to my presentation were able to understand our position. – Satoru Iwata
I think we can all see some similarities between Nintendo’s hardware and the products that Apple creates, but I believe the similarities stop there. I’m also glad to see Nintendo firing back at those that complain about Nintendo losing its edge. It may have shifted some focus, but I don’t think the company lost its edge.
