Ex-Sony Chief Praises Nintendo Strategy

Sony's former chairman and CEO Nobuyuki Idei says that technology companies in Kyoto, Japan -- such as Nintendo -- make him confident in the country's electronics industry. Idei used Nintendo's Wii console as an example of an electronics company that does more than just process information. Nintendo, he says, senses what "is happening in the world and then [acts] on it," according to a report from British newspaper The Financial Times. He also called on the industry to produce products that integrate other services in order to stand out, such as Amazon's Kindle book reader, which led to sales of the digital books for the device. Idei noticeably did not allude to his former company or their products, such as Sony's PlayStation 3, a rival video game console to Nintendo's Wii. The 71-year-old resigned from Sony in 2005, when he was replaced by current CEO and chairman Howard Stringer. In that same year, Business Week magazine nominated Idei as one of the "Worst Managers of 2005" due to Sony's losses under his leadership. Idei is currently the CEO and a board member of Quantum Leaps Corp., a Tokyo-based investment and management consultancy firm he founded with his own money in 2006.