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Iwata and Miyamoto talk Wii U long-tail software, titles coming this year to demonstrate value
Satoru Iwata (President):
The time frame I have in mind within which to enrich our software lineup with titles that communicate better the true appeal of our hardware is not an excessively long one. Except for "Wii Street U powered by Google," which I demonstrated to you a while ago, and other titles already announced, a month or two is certainly not adequate to release a large number of titles, but we are hoping to be able to communicate to our consumers the new value of our hardware with titles that we are going to launch from approximately the second half of the calendar year toward the end. Our results so far have indicated to a certain degree that it is rather difficult to let the hardware communicate its value by itself unless we focus on this aspect and become more creative in our messaging. However, this is not to say that our existing software has been inadequate in this regard and we are certainly not thinking of a long-term scale to achieve this. In addition, I believe that we will be able to launch new software within this year that we have not yet announced at this point.
Shigeru Miyamoto (Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Entertainment Analysis and Development Division):
Wii U has a lot of attractive features, but it requires a certain amount of time for people to understand them. A common practice in the entertainment industry is to offer a new proposition whose appeal can instantly be understood, enabling it to be popularized quickly. Nevertheless, while it is perhaps strange for Nintendo to say the opposite, our belief in designing this hardware was to create a standard machine full of convenience for every living room. We would have liked to create new entertainment that instantly communicated its value to the public, but we could not. However, I am confident that we did manage to develop software that, once people have played it, does communicate its value very well. We have not yet launched many titles, but Nintendo has been striving to sell its software for as long as three years in an industry where a typical software title has only a few weeks of product life. In this sense, we are confident that even our existing ideas are attractive enough to draw people to our hardware. During development, I found myself becoming increasingly accustomed to using two screens, and now I feel compelled to take a look at the screen in my hands even if that is not necessary. While it will take more time to give shape to our new propositions that take advantage of being able to use two screens, we have various ideas already. In terms of our research and development resources, as we need more staff in response to the high performance of this hardware, we are working to recruit more people, including people from outside the company. Apart from these issues, we are working hard without becoming worried about whether we are out of ideas or the system will be accepted into people's living rooms. It seems to me that we have a larger challenge in how to have many people understand the value of this hardware through our promotional activities.
Iwata:
Speaking from personal experience as a Wii U user, Wii U GamePad clearly created more incentives for me to switch on the system at home. I am increasingly seeing the impact of the system becoming independent of the TV, but it was not until I took it home with me and it started to become part of my daily life that I could talk about it as an actual experience. In this sense, I fully realized the value of the system only after it was launched. I believe that when we enrich the software lineup of Wii U, it will be easier to understand the advances in entertainment that are possible with this hardware system, and as more software is released, the advantages of its unique configuration will become more apparent. Please look forward to our progress with Wii U in the near future.
Link
The time frame I have in mind within which to enrich our software lineup with titles that communicate better the true appeal of our hardware is not an excessively long one. Except for "Wii Street U powered by Google," which I demonstrated to you a while ago, and other titles already announced, a month or two is certainly not adequate to release a large number of titles, but we are hoping to be able to communicate to our consumers the new value of our hardware with titles that we are going to launch from approximately the second half of the calendar year toward the end. Our results so far have indicated to a certain degree that it is rather difficult to let the hardware communicate its value by itself unless we focus on this aspect and become more creative in our messaging. However, this is not to say that our existing software has been inadequate in this regard and we are certainly not thinking of a long-term scale to achieve this. In addition, I believe that we will be able to launch new software within this year that we have not yet announced at this point.
Shigeru Miyamoto (Senior Managing Director, General Manager of Entertainment Analysis and Development Division):
Wii U has a lot of attractive features, but it requires a certain amount of time for people to understand them. A common practice in the entertainment industry is to offer a new proposition whose appeal can instantly be understood, enabling it to be popularized quickly. Nevertheless, while it is perhaps strange for Nintendo to say the opposite, our belief in designing this hardware was to create a standard machine full of convenience for every living room. We would have liked to create new entertainment that instantly communicated its value to the public, but we could not. However, I am confident that we did manage to develop software that, once people have played it, does communicate its value very well. We have not yet launched many titles, but Nintendo has been striving to sell its software for as long as three years in an industry where a typical software title has only a few weeks of product life. In this sense, we are confident that even our existing ideas are attractive enough to draw people to our hardware. During development, I found myself becoming increasingly accustomed to using two screens, and now I feel compelled to take a look at the screen in my hands even if that is not necessary. While it will take more time to give shape to our new propositions that take advantage of being able to use two screens, we have various ideas already. In terms of our research and development resources, as we need more staff in response to the high performance of this hardware, we are working to recruit more people, including people from outside the company. Apart from these issues, we are working hard without becoming worried about whether we are out of ideas or the system will be accepted into people's living rooms. It seems to me that we have a larger challenge in how to have many people understand the value of this hardware through our promotional activities.
Iwata:
Speaking from personal experience as a Wii U user, Wii U GamePad clearly created more incentives for me to switch on the system at home. I am increasingly seeing the impact of the system becoming independent of the TV, but it was not until I took it home with me and it started to become part of my daily life that I could talk about it as an actual experience. In this sense, I fully realized the value of the system only after it was launched. I believe that when we enrich the software lineup of Wii U, it will be easier to understand the advances in entertainment that are possible with this hardware system, and as more software is released, the advantages of its unique configuration will become more apparent. Please look forward to our progress with Wii U in the near future.
Link