Buzz, Predictions Surround Nintendo Investor Conference

Just ahead of Nintendo's Japanese investor conference tomorrow, speculation abounds on what the company might reveal. Mito Securities analyst Yoichiro Watanabe tells Bloomberg not to expect price cuts for Wii, noting that Nintendo's dual strategy of targeting casual consumers while adding plenty of peripherals have positioned the company competitively. "These two strategies have made Nintendo stronger than Sony and Microsoft," Watanabe says. "There's no reason to cut the Wii's price as demand is strong. The macroeconomic environment is in poor shape but based on past experience, game demand will not be affected much by this." Watanabe says Nintendo may leverage this strength by unveiling further peripherals at tomorrow's event. In recent comments to Gamasutra, analysts of the American markets also agreed the game biz will see little economic impact from the current uncertain climate. Two separate Japanese newspapers, the Nikkei Sangyo and Yoimuri Shimbun, recently reported that Nintendo may unveil a new model DS tomorrow, incorporating a camera and music player. Nintendo later told consumer weblog Kotaku that it didn't provide any information to the newspapers for the Nikkei Sangyo story, refusing to confirm any of the facts reported. Meanwhile, veteran journalist John Davison, not generally known to engage in rumor-mongering, cites anonymous sources to state that Nintendo is in the early presentation phase for the next version of its Wii hardware, titled "Wii HD," slated for 2011. Says Davison, "High definition visuals are assured, as is a greater emphasis on digitally distributed and backwardly compatible content, indicating that the new system will feature some form of local storage medium such as a hard drive or large flash memory solution." However, it is unlikely that these explorations will result in a public announcement so soon. Concurring with predictions of Nintendo's continued focus on peripherals, Davison adds, "It has also been indicated that Nintendo’s emphasis is again on what the consumer will hold in their hands and interact with, rather than the 'console' itself."