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Iwata on Nintendo's plans to get a better sales situation in China
As for the business in China, we have a local corporation named iQue which works to deliver our products to Chinese consumers. Under the name of iQue, we launched the Nintendo DS in July 2005, the Nintendo DS Lite in June 2006 and the Nintendo DSi in December 2009. We plan that iQue will release our future products as well, but I am afraid I should not talk about any future plans here. Messages dispatched by a Japanese company in regard to China can often be first translated into English and, then, further translated into Chinese to be spread throughout China. In this process, I myself experienced several times in the past that what I said in Japanese was reported in China in a different context and meaning from my original Japanese messages, which were conceived by the people there as rather unpleasant although, as a matter of course, I had never meant to say such things at all. Through these experiences, we have learned that any business announcements about China should be made in China. It seems that a number of the Japanese companies doing business there also make it a rule to talk only about a general plan in Japan, but the detailed plans are announced by their local corporations. Therefore, although iQue will continue its businesses there, please let me refrain from talking about specific strategies here.
One of the challenges in doing business in China is related to the fact that video game systems today are instantaneously distributed to so many different countries in the world as soon as they are launched somewhere on the Earth. Game systems are also available in China, but I hear that most of them are unofficially imported items without paying any value-added tax, which is equivalent to the consumption tax in Japan. Of course, as we are trying to do our best in order to conduct legitimate operations with no legal issues, iQue sells our systems with the value-added tax. This makes a price gap between official products and unofficial ones. Therefore, we have to tackle the challenge of how to add a special attraction to official products so that consumers will choose them. We would like to find a productive solution this year. I hope you will wait for our announcement on the result. - Satoru Iwata
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One of the challenges in doing business in China is related to the fact that video game systems today are instantaneously distributed to so many different countries in the world as soon as they are launched somewhere on the Earth. Game systems are also available in China, but I hear that most of them are unofficially imported items without paying any value-added tax, which is equivalent to the consumption tax in Japan. Of course, as we are trying to do our best in order to conduct legitimate operations with no legal issues, iQue sells our systems with the value-added tax. This makes a price gap between official products and unofficial ones. Therefore, we have to tackle the challenge of how to add a special attraction to official products so that consumers will choose them. We would like to find a productive solution this year. I hope you will wait for our announcement on the result. - Satoru Iwata
Link