You can search for a program by genre. For example, if you are looking for a music program, click “music” and all the relevant music programs are highlighted in the program schedule. Because of this, it is possible to find what you want quickly and easily.

Or, each person in a family can register those programs that they personally want to watch.
If you look at this screen, you can see that each family member’s programs are shown in a different color. For example, this can promote dialogue within the family as everybody finds out what sort of programs mom likes. By doing this, you can also declare that you want to watch programs that other family members have already registered.

Or, you can search for the program by keywords. It might be a keyword or the name of your favorite actor or personality. We have made it very easy to search.

In collaboration with Interactive Program Guide, or IPG, Nintendo will start a unique service to provide Wii consoles with TV program schedules that make use of G-guide in Wii Channels.

IPG is a joint venture company between Gemstar-TV Guide International of the U.S., Dentsu and Tokyo News Service in Japan. IPG will provide an electronic program guide service under the brand name of “G-Guide”.

Previously, video games and TV programs were regarded as things competing with each other to grab a viewer’s time. But we want Wii to become a kind of a friend to the TV set in the living room. So it will be nice if people will turn on the Wii console when they want to search for interesting TV programs. To do this, of course, we will need to assure very smooth control, even better than that with any other digital electronic products, by offering some unique tweaks only available with Wii. We would like users to be surprised and say, “Wow, the thing will be like this if it is made by Nintendo!” We are planning to start this TV program schedule channel in spring of 2008, by March.

I made this remark before but we believe that DS has already entered into a phase where we should promote it not as a mere game machine but as the “machine to enrich owners’ lives”. The key to this must be whether or not we will be able to make new and attractive proposals, one after the other, that can encourage people to touch DS on daily basis, and whether we can make DS something that people feel like carrying around wherever they go.

If we can do this, it will become possible that we will be able to create the move from “one DS per household” to “one DS per individual”. Then, DS will be able to expand beyond what were traditionally believed to be saturation points, such as the 20million unit sell-thru in Japan.

For almost two years, we have been providing such services as trial software downloads and wireless connections at DS Stations that are installed at around 1000 retailers in Japan. Before, there had not been any system like this. But now, during the first 6 months of this fiscal year, every week, trial versions were played approximately 369,000 times, 82000 downloads were also made, and DS stations were used for Wi-Fi Connections approximately 95,000 times. So a number of people are regularly using DS Stations.

You can carry around DS wherever you go. Without a need for physical storage media, DS can conduct small exchanges of data. DS can get access to the Internet as long as there is a Wi-Fi access point. DS can be used by anyone regardless of age and gender or technical knowledge. It can even be used without the need to read the instruction manuals. DS is the platform with the greatest market penetration ever. Of course, cell phones have the far bigger installed base, but there are so many different types, so they should not be considered as a single platform. As for DS, one software application can run on all DS hardware available. We would like to leverage this unique nature of DS as a common platform. We would also like to increase the wireless communication stations for DS, so DS owners will find meaningful reasons to carry around their DS hardware with them. Given the costs and availability of appropriate spaces, it is not very easy to increase the number of DS Station installed at the retail outlets, By looking into the possibility of making wireless communication points in locations other than traditional retail outlets, we will be able to explore new possibilities.

We have received comments and advice from many people as we tried to expand the gaming population.
They say, “We understand the merits of gaming population expansion, but can you actually do it?” “Can you really encourage adult female and senior customers to be interested in video games?” “You appeared to be successful with DS, but can you do the same with Wii?” “Will the method that worked in Japan also work in the overseas markets?” and, “DS and Wii were very unique and innovative, but aren’t they just a passing fad?” In other words, Nintendo is constantly challenging what was previously accepted as commonsense within this industry. As the result, as everybody knows, there have been dramatic changes that constitute a paradigm shift. After all, what was once believed to be commonsense was merely dependent upon the circumstances and prevailing conditions at a particular point in time. There were never any unchangeable truth. And now, we are receiving questions such as, “Hasn’t DS already reached its sales saturation point?” and “Isn’t this gaming population expansion just a temporary phenomenon?” In the future Nintendo will continue to be free and unchained by traditional industry beliefs. Furthermore, we will explore the future by leveraging unique and original ideas.