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Nintendo DS Status Update
- August 20, 2004 05:42 AM PST
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An update on the DS straight from the horse's mouth. Nintendo's EVP of sales and marketing tells us like it is.
On August 10 Nintendo's executive vice president of sales and marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, gave a speech about the status of the Nintendo DS to a private gathering in California. While there is a bit of company hype in the speech, Fils-Aime does give the crowd some solid information about the DS. Read on for the complete, un-edited, transcript of his speech.Nintendo DS Speech
Hello, my name is Reggie...and I'm addicted to my blackberry. In fact, to me, it's a crackberry.
(holds up blackberry...)
Since I was given my first taste of the blackberry, I haven't been able to put it down. Sure, the constant email connection is a rush...but I also have to admit, when I first got it, I just loved the attention it generated. Every time I pulled it out and explained what I was doing, people would say, "wow!"
Now, I'm no techie poseur, but that reaction made me kind of feel like I belonged. For the moment, I was cool.
Then, not long ago, I was sitting in a meeting where everyone had their cell phones in front of them on the table, like cowboys displaying their pistols at a poker game.
I thought that made me at least equally cool as everyone else until the guy who runs our European operation confessed that while we were discussing business...he was using his phone as a modem to connect his PDA online. While we all talked, assuming he was taking notes, he was simultaneously surfing the net.
This time, it was my turn to say, "wow!"
And the experts say we're on the cusp of seeing both those devices-the phone and the browser-being incorporated into one wireless package simple enough and affordable enough for the mass market.
To that...again I say "wow!"
These moments matter to me, because like everyone else in our business, I live and die by the ability to generate that same reaction. We're all looking for a way to make them say, "wow!"
Today I'd like to share a few thoughts on how Nintendo approaches that challenge...how our take might differ from those of our competitors...and finally, how this all applies to the upcoming introduction of two new handheld gaming devices...the Nintendo DS...and the Sony PSP.
Let me begin by returning to the blackberry example. This is a wonderful device...but it did not invent email. What it did was to give me a new way to connect to my email.
In the same sense, Apple's I-Pod invented neither music nor even portable music play. But it did revolutionize access because of how much music it transports...and because Apple figured out how to un-tie the legal knot between rights owners and music lovers.
These two devices-the blackberry and the I-Pod-deserve their success and their hip status because their developers were both innovative--and patient.
Despite critical acclaim from the start, the pod-pod spent a year and a half in sales obscurity before it began to take off. And few people realize that the blackberry line is already five years old.
Well, they did succeed...but success inevitably breeds competition. As hot and dominant as these products are right now, there is no guarantee that they will stay that way-no more than Wang's word processing program...or Texas Instrument's portable calculator...or Netscape's browser.
What is rare in the technology world is a product line than can maintain its dominance. If you do that for five years, it's called amazing. If you succeed for a decade, it's called unprecedented. But if you do it for 15 years, you can only call it one thing-Game Boy.
I say that not just because it makes me feel good...but also to draw a distinction.
Game Boy has not succeeded because no one else cared about our multi-billion dollar global market.
Not because people thought they couldn't chip off a decent piece of our effective 100% market share.
Over the years, we count nine serious contenders to our portable game line. None succeeded.
They didn't fail because they were undercapitalized...or unsophisticated...or backed by unintelligent people. They were all playing for keeps.
But one difference between Game Boy and those contenders was a differing perspective on what business we were in. Most of them saw themselves in the technology business...and competed accordingly.
We do not for a minute argue that Sega's Game Gear in the 90's wasn't technically superior to our Game boy-after all, it featured a color screen. Back then; Game Boy's screen was color, too-as long as you didn't want more than one color.
Recently Nokia married a game machine with a cell phone and other devices-clearly something Game Boy did not. But as yet, N-Gage has not made a ripple in the market.
In the near future, Sony's Game Boy rival will also come to market with a better spec sheet. But the question of better market performance remains, at best, unproven.
The distinction is this: while we've steadily improved the technology of Game Boy, Nintendo has never considered itself in the technology business. We are in the entertainment business.
The difference is telling...and I can use the recent history of Sony to illustrate the point.
Over the last year or so they introduced two very different kinds of video game products.
The first was the PSX in Japan...likely the most advanced game-based device ever devised. It promised video game play with a recordable DVD, a TV tuner, built-in Ethernet capability and a 120 gig hard drive. Believe me, the techies said, 'wow!'
The second was a simple camera attachment for the Playstation called the eye toy...technology at least one serious reviewer unkindly referred to as 'primitive'.
Yet, the eye toy is a "wow" product, and is having infinitely larger market impact...because it's far more entertaining.
What this again underscores for us at Nintendo is the eternal distinction between high performance...and high entertainment. Technology should and will continue to improve over time. But alone, it's no guarantee of success, whether your business is games or music players or wireless email. Now, as I said, technology should and will continue to improve.
