Excerpts from All Things D reporter Tricia’s Duryee’s interview with Nintendo Global President Satoru Iwata. Bill Trinen, as always, provides the translations:
My point is about how we can keep the public’s perception of the software.
If we are going to destroy the value of the game software — once we have done so, it’s a difficult job to recover from that situation.
Yes, it is true. There are great examples of advertising and doing the microtranscactions, and several companies who have come up with that kind of system. But on the other hand, if you ask me, is this the system that can be sustatined for the long time? I don’t know the answer.
Just because many other people are thinking that way, we aren’t thinking that way.
If you take that last passage by itself, it seems admirable that Nintendo would stick by its’ guns. it’s almost Apple like. Unfortunately, as the rest of the interview reveals, what Iwata really means is that while the entire video game industry is pursuing new avenues and business models, Nintendo is content with the way things are today. Their differentiation is staying stuck in the past, where Nintendo can still fool themselves into thinking they are still the ones leading the industry forward.
1 note