Today, Nintendo published its shareholder Q&A with company president Iwata, addressing its plans for 2014, including its character licensing business and its intent to enter the mobile market in some fashion.
"I truly need to reflect on the outcome of this year-end sales season, which, in my opinion, was the worst year-end sales season in the overseas markets since I became president, and I would like to bring them back on the right track as soon as possible."
- Nintendo President & CEO Satoru Iwata discusses his plans for the company in the investor Q&A published on the Nintendo website. Nintendo held a much-ballyhooed press briefing last Thursday to address questions and concerns regarding its remarkable projected financial loss for 2013, but the briefing seemed to raise more questions than it answered. Today Nintendo published its translation of the lengthy Q&A session that immediately followed the investor briefing. In it, company president and CEO Satoru Iwata seeks to address concerns about the company's plans for 2014, including its decision to jumpstart its character licensing business and its intent to enter the mobile market in some fashion. "The key aspect is that Nintendo would like to establish a firm channel on smart devices through which we can connect with consumers," says Iwata. "This channel will enable not only us but also third-party publishers to communicate all the fun content on Nintendo platforms to consumers." "However, we cannot expect consumers to activate our application every day if we only establish a channel that is solely dedicated to advertising. We would have to make efforts to provide a channel for consumers that makes them entertained, pleased and happy in order to have them use our application frequently." Iwata also elucidates Nintendo's intent when it comes to licensing characters, suggesting that the company will shy away from license deals for products that directly compete with Nintendo's core businesses or otherwise do not lead to "consumer's smiles" in the long term. Furthermore, Iwata points out that Nintendo is aware of its chronic dry spells when it comes to producing first-party software for new consoles. The CEO suggests that the company is trying to alleviate this issue by unifying its software architecture across platforms so that games can be more easily spread across multiple systems, and points to Android and iOS as good examples for Nintendo to follow. "Nintendo platforms should be like those two examples," says Iwata. "We are hoping to change and correct the situation in which we develop games for different platforms individually and sometimes disappoint consumers with game shortages as we attempt to move from one platform to another." The full four-page Q&A can be found on the Nintendo website.
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