Iwata:

  You just mentioned that Nintendo DS had a hard time in the U.S. at the beginning, and it is true. By now, the U.S. sales of Nintendo DS have been outpacing those of Game Boy Advance in the U.S., but for some time at the beginning, Nintendo DS was selling at a much slower pace than Game Boy Advance did in its initial phase on the market. In the U.S., a number of people in this industry were wondering if Nintendo DS would ever be able to spread in the U.S. market at all.
  My recognition about the Japanese market for Nintendo DS is, approximately half a year after the launch of Nintendo DS, we launched "nintendogs" and, then, "Brain Training," and each of the two titles needed another six months on the market to gradually increase the sales and eventually to start to show explosive sales, just in time for the 2005 year-end sales season in Japan. However, at the end of 2005, we were yet to launch "Brain Training" in the U.S., and "nintendogs" had just hit the market in fall, so Nintendo DS was not able to make explosive sales there at that time. Because the company was late in launching key titles for Nintendo DS in the U.S., we could not simultaneously reproduce the Japanese situation there. For this time, we recognize the importance of creating a sound launch for Nintendo 3DS and making quick expansion.
  To this end, it will become critical for us to provide hands-on experience opportunities for our consumers, although I do not know whether we will do a similar type of event as the Japanese one. The Japanese equivalent of "seeing is believing" can be perfectly applied to Nintendo 3DS. When it comes to holding hands-on opportunities for consumers, I can say that our marketing team at our U.S. subsidiary has the ability to handle them pretty well. I believe we will deploy such opportunities at the appropriate timing when we have concrete evidence that our consumers there will appreciate Nintendo 3DS if we can provide them with the opportunity to see the screen with their own eyes. For the sales spread of Wii, shopping mall tours worked well in the U.S. I think the expertise gained from these activities may become useful for Nintendo 3DS.
  Regarding the third parties, Mr. Hatano from our Marketing Division is not only responsible for our Japanese marketing but also is in charge of third parties in the U.S., so I'd like to have him make the explanation.

Shinji Hatano (Senior Managing Director of Nintendo and General Manager of Marketing Division):

  Nintendo has been offering support to and collaborating with a number of software publishers inside and outside Japan. First about Japan, most of the publishers are interested in Nintendo 3DS and they are proactively trying to develop Nintendo 3DS software.
  As for the overseas publishers, I understand that I should talk not only about U.S. publishers but also about European publishers. E3 this year was the first opportunity for us to show Nintendo 3DS to many of the publishers. At that time, the Japanese publishers tended to have a higher appreciation than their U.S. counterparts. Then, the high appreciation and expectations from the Japanese publishers started to have a positive influence upon the mindsets of non-Japanese publishers and developers, I think.
  Our president mentioned the issue of graphical capability today. The American and European publishers are particularly interested in improved graphics, and many of them are independently researching this new 3D approach. I have not been able to see the most recent graphics, but I believe they have come to a fairly high level by now. It is true that at the time of E3 2010, these publishers were late in getting access to the relevant information, but Nintendo 3DS offers them the exact development fields that they are very good at, and the things they can do with this hardware must be exactly what they really want to do, so accordingly, I believe that they will develop something of a fairly high level.
  I cannot elaborate on the exact details today, but as far as I hear, the publishers are showing aggressive attitudes in developing for Nintendo 3DS, and I am personally looking forward to the outcome.

Iwata:

  I often travel abroad, so I have many opportunities to ask people in our subsidiaries about what our overseas software publishers think about Nintendo 3DS, and I know they have much stronger interest in it than when Nintendo DS was about to be launched. To say the least, our overseas publishers are not taking a passive approach to Nintendo 3DS at all. In fact, it is safe for you to think that they have been fairly proactive in thinking about this new hardware from the start.
  Finally about the movies, nothing concrete has been decided yet. When we demonstrated Nintendo 3DS for the first time in the world at the time of E3, we were allowed to showcase some 3D movie trailers from a few Hollywood studios (to people including many from the Hollywood movie industry), and we have received a number of offers since then. Therefore, I am certain that people in Hollywood are interested in this new product. Whenever we have shown Nintendo 3DS, almost without any exceptions, people have shown strong interest in it.
  We understand that many movie theaters will be able to show 3D movies, and a considerable amount of movie content is going to be made in 3D. When it comes to the opportunity for them to be able to show 3D movies, however, people in Hollywood currently do not believe that 3D television sets will be able to spread into ordinary households with rapid speed. I have the impression that they see Nintendo 3DS as a strong candidate to become the very first 3D device to be able to spread into the mass market in massive volumes. I'd like to discuss more details at some later time, when I will be able to do so.

Iwata:

  Because the questions this time are rather technical, I think I will need to supplement for the majority of you today as to what "fixed shaders" and "programmable shaders" are.
  Each 3D computer graphics hardware system includes a circuit called a "shader." So, what does this shader do? In short, it is circuitry to shade the pictures. When a 3D object receives light, the part which receives the light becomes brighter and the other side without the light becomes darker and, partially with that effect, we human beings can recognize its 3D nature. Ever since approximately 15 years ago, when computer graphics were available for the first time in video games, significant progress has been made in how to realize that kind of visual effect even though, at the very beginning, what it could offer was rather primitive. In the last decade, "programmable shaders" have started to spread in the developers' community. With programmable shaders, software developers can send to the hardware the programs to dictate which shading should be realized. On the other hand, Nintendo has adopted for Nintendo 3DS a different approach from the programmable shaders that are commonly used today. More specifically, even though there are various shading methods available with programmable shaders, because there are certain sets of typical combinations the developers are using, we have made it (the hardware) so that we can offer the Nintendo 3DS developers this method or various alternatives from the start. I understand that the person with this question called this technology "fixed shaders." So, the question was, why we have decided to choose such an approach, what the advantage is and what the disadvantage is. I'd like to ask Mr. Takeda to answer this first.

Genyo Takeda (Senior Managing Director of Nintendo and General Manager of Integrated Research & Development Division):

  As for the reason we chose fixed shaders this time, I was not directly involved in that particular process, but my understanding is that the company has chosen the most appropriate methods for the appropriate areas, so it is not a case of one method being generally better or worse than another.
  In designing a handheld game device, power consumption is one of the biggest factors to consider. Naturally, the designers have to make efforts to lower the power consumption. The advantage of handheld devices is that they do not require such high-end resolution like that of home TV sets. The users are going to look at the lower resolution screens at closer distances from their eyes. When the company considers this and other factors comprehensively, just as Iwata mentioned just before, the question is whether we should make it perfectly flexible or would it be better for us to focus upon the methods which are expected to be used most often. When we conduct a comprehensive review, we also need to take into consideration such factors as software development costs and many other things. My understanding is that the company has concluded, after reviewing everything comprehensively, that fixed shaders are the most appropriate choice for this handheld device.

Miyamoto:

  I believe Mr. Takeda's explanation has already summed up almost everything. From the software developers' point of view, we need stable performance to be yielded from the hardware. A long time ago, when we were making software for Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System), the hardware took care of almost everything automatically, so we were able to anticipate very stable performance. Of course, there were always other limitations, though. Based upon such experiences as well, rather than following suit with what other companies are doing in general, we thought that Nintendo could go its own way. Such a philosophical aspect was also there when we made this selection, but the primary reason was the anticipated stable performance.

Iwata:

  I was personally involved in that specific decision making process. After receiving the proposal, I personally thought that it was the right choice because it had the right balance between power consumption and graphical capability. I don't know if this method will be the best choice forever, but as of now, I have concluded that it's a very well-balanced method. You just referred to one of the "Iwata Asks" articles. When the developers said that they had hard times in order to get the expected performance, it actually has something to do with what Mr. Miyamoto said right now, namely, he prefers to have a machine which can yield stable performance. This is something both Mr. Miyamoto and I had a challenging time with as software developers, so maybe this is not a pleasing subject for Mr. Takeda, but we did experience a lot of hardships when working on Nintendo 64. When we were working on Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) and Super Famicom (Super NES), basically, whatever was promised in the hardware spec sheets could actually be done. However, since Nintendo 64, the concept of hardware has drastically changed to, "the software developers can do anything as they like, but the total amount of the work the hardware can execute is limited." In other words, we were told, "you are free to choose the allotments of the total performance." We, the software developers, are always greedy when it comes to the game ideas we want to realize. We tend to make every possible effort, here, there and everywhere. And then, after we have incorporated everything, we find that the software does not work. When just one designer, be it Mr. Miyamoto, me or someone else, did some extra effort in order to make slightly better graphics, the total frame rate greatly decreased. Such things happened, and we had a hard time dealing with them. The biggest trouble with Nintendo 64 was, when something unexpected happened, we could not tell why it had happened. At one time, the system was working just fine, but at some other time, the anticipated performance could not be generated. When we happened to be able to make it right, it was very quick, say, something like a tuned-up sports car, which could not show its maximum performance otherwise. That lesson we learned from Nintendo 64 was taken into consideration when we designed Nintendo GameCube, and the learning through the development of this hardware was there when we designed Wii. The developers have been able to take advantage of the performance of Wii for such a long period of time since it was launched, and this fact must have something to do with how Mr. Takeda and the other hardware developers have made the most of the experiences and expertise they have learned from Nintendo 64, and Nintendo, as an organization, has recognized the importance of a machine for which software developers can always expect stable performance from the hardware.
  So, please understand this as a sort of background for what you read in "Iwata Asks" about the hardship the software developers experienced on Nintendo 64. As for your question on the choice between programmable shaders and fixed shaders, almost everything fixed shaders can do can also be done by programmable shaders. On the contrary, fixed shaders cannot do all the things which programmable shaders can do. Please consider it this way: among the myriads of possible things that programmable shaders can do, fixed shaders have chosen the functions that are expected to be used most often, and the hardware will offer these functions. Fixed shaders have certain limits in their graphical representation capability, but if you ask me, "will they be too restrictive?", I should say that all the functions anticipated to actually be used are there, so I can't find any inferiority. Many of you have already seen with your own eyes the graphics on Nintendo 3DS into which the developers have poured a lot of their energy, but I don't think you have ever been dissatisfied with the visual quality. With that and other factors, such as taking the most appropriate balance between the power consumption and the entire performance, we have chosen this method for this time. Thank you for your understanding.

Takeda:

  We do not have any particular know-how to find such IC chips. However, increasingly, we have the opportunity to be able to communicate with a number of people inside and outside of Japan. Recently, there are increasing opportunities to talk with European people as well. Nintendo itself is not such a company (which designs and produces IC chips), so we have the advantage that we are able to openly discuss anything with anyone. In the case of larger entities, some part of its operations often have business conflicts with some IC chip companies, but in the case of Nintendo, due partially to its uniqueness, no IC chip companies see us as a competitor. So, we are leveraging upon such a unique position we have and we are always able to discuss relevant deals with anyone in the world. This is the general answer I can make.

Iwata:

  Maybe, what Mr. Takeda told you right now is one of the unknown strengths of Nintendo. For example, those who originally designed acceleration sensors probably did not imagine in the beginning that Wii Remote, with its acceleration sensor, would spread all around the world in such a massive volume and that other devices are now adopting the same technology. Acceleration sensors were not originally designed for remote controllers. So, from the view points of designers and makers of such technologies, Nintendo can be seen as a company which has the potential to make use of their technologies and the resulted products may generate huge global demand, which may even further expand the use of their technologies if Nintendo does it right. I sometimes discuss this with Mr. Takeda, but Nintendo can be regarded as a unique company because many others expect something unexpected from us all the time and, as a result, many other companies are approaching us with a variety of proposals. The ability to be a good judge plays a very important role here.
  Sometime ago in the Operational Briefing, I discussed the importance of being able to anticipate the number of units each software title can sell. For the hardware, the ability to be able to tell whether or not certain technology has the potential to support the needs of the company becomes important. The last time when we thought we made the right selection was probably when we adopted 1T-SRAM. When a technology has not been proven in the marketplace yet, we need to review and conclude if it will work for us in the future. As we actually adopt such technologies, more and more companies become willing to offer their latest technologies to us by thinking, "Now that we have invented this new technology, there is a possibility that Nintendo would be able to make use of it for use in the mass market and, thereby, greatly expand the demand for our technology." As we can create such a stream, one of the very important jobs for us developers today must be to be a good judge.