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Why did Nintendo develop Wii? It's because we felt a strong sense of crisis about the future of video game industry. |
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While the North American video game market was still largely growing, the Japanese video game market was constantly declining from 1997 to 2003, which triggered us to steer in a new direction. |
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Based on our analysis of "Gamer Drift," the phenomena exhibited by a declining number of people playing with games because they required too much time and energy and because the skill gap between the first-time players and veterans had become too wide, we initiated a challenge to our company to cope with the issue. |
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Looking back at the history of the video game industry, it used to be the mission for any new game machines to integrate state-of-the-art semiconductor technologies, as processing abilities advanced, in an effort to create games with rich graphics.
However, the fresh stimulation that gorgeous graphics could give players had reached it's saturation point and graphics were no longer appealing to an expanded audience. With "Gamer Drift" already taking place, we concluded that it would not lead us to further market growth if we simply went down the same path the industry had been traveling for years by simply creating more gorgeous-looking games.
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So, Nintendo set its basic strategy as the "Expansion of the Gaming Population" in 2003.
We were trying to reach this goal by introducing products that can be enjoyed by anyone regardless of age, gender or gaming experience. Internally, we had been repeatedly using such keywords as "for 5 to 95 years old" or "Let people to enjoy from the same start line".
The first tangible game machine we offered was—
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—Nintendo DS.
We thought that we would need to renovate the user interface if we wanted everyone to start playing from the same start line, and DS ended up having very unique configuration with dual-screen, touch screen and microphone command inputs. |
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In the end, DS was able to secure the acceptance around the world. It was embraced in Japan first, and the people in the Americas and Europe, who have never played video games, are playing DS. |
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And, following DS, as the 2nd step to expand the gaming population,— |
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—Nintendo has launched Wii, a product that offers a new play style in console gaming.
Before explaining about Wii, however, I would like to talk about the current status of DS and the changes taking place in the game markets around the world.
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