Dear Reader:
Iwata on why Nintendo does Nintendo Directs/Digital Events, reconfirms plans for today's show
The following comes from Mr. Iwata...
Originally, the Media Briefings (press conferences) were attended not only by reporters but also by security analysts, distributors and game industry staff—but now that Internet broadcasting is commonplace, many videogame fans can now watch them, too.
On the other hand, the information sought by reporters present at the press conferences can vary greatly depending on their viewpoints. As a result, every year saw the difficulty of pleasing everyone increase. That’s when we settled for a new format to convey information. With the Nintendo Direct format, our E3 has greatly evolved in the last 2-3 years.
This is the back story as to how the Media Briefing changed into the Nintendo Digital Event. During the Digital Event broadcast, we also have distributors gather and open a conference specially dedicated to them.
During our financial results briefing on May 8th, we talked about how we won’t announce anything about the new NX hardware until next year, and how we don’t have plans to showcase our QoL (Quality of Life) business or smart device announcements at E3, which we at Nintendo consider a trade fair for console games. However, perhaps these statements may not reached out as far as we had hoped.
For this year’s Nintendo Digital Event, we will use the occasion to showcase Wii U and 3DS software that is expected to release this year and early next year. It will be voiced in English with Japanese subtitles. This year, I’d like to join you all in Japan to watch the broadcast together. (Note: The second half of that tweet obviously pertains only to Japan.)