Iwata takes aim at Nintendo of America

According to a recently released transcript of last week's Nintendo financial briefing, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is reportedly disappointed with the sales performance of his company's American arm, and vows to right the ship for the coming fiscal year.

By Eugene Huang

Earlier this week, GamePro reported that Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata offered a briefing regarding Nintendo's financial earnings for the fiscal year ended March 31st, 2007. However, our previous coverage was strictly a summary of the press conference, focusing mainly on Nintendo's admission that their next fiscal year would show an emphasis on software development and production.

He's all smiles now, but cross him, and he'll probably put your head through a meat grinder.

He's all smiles now, but cross him, and he'll probably put your head through a meat grinder.

Nintendo has since offered an English translation of the transcript for the Q&A session following the speech, which can be found in its entirety on the company's corporate website. Although it covers much of what GamePro has already revealed, there are a number of new comments made pertaining to the disappointing performance of a certain "red, white, and blue" country. (Hint: it's not in Europe.)

While answering questions from the media, Iwata pulled no punches in explaining his dissatisfaction with the annual performance of Nintendo of America in comparison with all of Nintendo's other major territories across the globe. As a means of comparison, Iwata produced the sales results of Brain Age.

    "We launched Brain Training (Brain Age) software in Europe and in the Americas almost simultaneously, but there exists a big difference in sales. Until some point in time, Europe was constantly selling significantly more number of DS hardware on weekly basis, which was unthinkable in terms of the past when it was taken for granted that American markets would easily sell twice the number of sales made in Europe. So (specifically referring to the market change), I said today that Europe was first in blooming and the Americas are yet to show their real strength.

    "Of course, we anticipate the expansion of DS there thanks to Pok?mon and other titles. We will be glad as more Pok?mon are sold, but it is not enough when we want to expand the gaming population. When I received a report from the U.S. that they sold 1 million Pok?mon Diamond & Pearl already, I asked them, 'why did you sell only 10,000 Brain Age last week, when Europe sold through 30,000?' This is a typical example of how I communicate with our people in the U.S."

However, although Iwata does acknowledge that there is much room for improvement, he also noted that he has seen some comforting signs in America's DS sales of late, particularly in hardware:

    "[A]ccording to [the NPD Group], more than 500,000 DS hardware were sold in March alone. Selling any hardware more than 500,000 in March in the U.S. is not a bad figure at all, and we should not be pessimistic. On the other hand, Japan, which traditionally has only half the market size of the Americas, as a result of successfully expanding the gaming population, was able to sell 600,000 or 700,000 DS hardware in months which were not in the holiday sales season. From such a perspective, it can be said that the U.S. is merely duplicating the good sales which have been achieved in traditional game business [...]."

On the other hand, Iwata is confident that the Wii will make a much more significant impact on America than it will on Japan, primarily due to the more social nature of American gaming culture. He continued:

    "About Wii, on the other hand, we are feeling higher expectations in Americas than in Japan. People at [Nintendo of America] tell me, 'We have no recollection of a time when our products were being talked about this much in non-business situations.' Probably, the U.S. practice of holding home parties and Wii's features, especially its unique aspect of 'anyone can understand how to play instantaneously and can fully enjoy the play even in 5 minutes,' are a good match."

In summation, Iwata understands the importance of the U.S. market and sees an amazing growth potential. Specifically, he stated that one of the company's goals this year is "to pay special attention to the U.S. market". To clarify, he later noted:

    "We are also noticing what the U.S. people often call "early signs." In many different places, something unprecedented is actually taking place in the U.S. People who would never talk about video games are actually discussing DS and Wii or actually touching them. These are the early symptoms for the market to change. [...] When the change [occurred in Japan], the Japanese market doubled its size. I think that same thing can happen in the U.S. We have not gone that far yet but we are listening to the earth rumbling. We have come to that stage."

As a final question, a press agent asked whether Nintendo plans to make the Wii the number one selling console in America. With a laugh, he responded:

    "All I can say is, we would like to make efforts to make that happen. It is the analysts' job to predict whether or not we can make it, isn't it?"

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