Shortly after reporting heavy profit and revenue declines for the three months ended June 30, Nintendo held its first quarter financial results briefing. Among other things, president Satoru Iwata’s presentation covered company sales projections and pricing strategy, new hardware and software, an underwhelming E3 conference and the Wii Vitality Sensor. Below you’ll find a series of key quotes and slides taken directly from Iwata’s presentation.

Iwata On New Software And Potential Sales
"… We are launching Wii Sports Resort in Q2 of this fiscal year, then Wii Fit Plus and New Super Mario Bros. Wii in Q3 of this fiscal year…. These three titles have already been available for hands-on demonstrations at E3 this year. They were highly evaluated by most of those who actually tried them. Distributors also gave feedback like ‘The key player of this holiday season will be Nintendo as expected.’ So I believe each of these three software titles have the potential to surpass ten million copies worldwide in the whole fiscal year.

"We developed these games under the concept of ‘Everyone's game’ with the goal that they would satisfy everyone, from veteran gamers to the novice players. We are confident that they have turned out that way and will make a significant impact in the market… They don't seem to overlap with titles from other companies and are not likely to cannibalise one another."

On The 'Everyone’s Game' Philosophy
"General marketing wisdom says that customers need to be segmented. For product planning, the target audience needs to be identified and narrowed down… The fact of the matter is, [Shigeru] Miyamoto is the head of one R&D division, which can only launch a few titles each year. To maximise the result, we have decided to counter the common marketing wisdom and go anti-segmentation if everyone else is segmenting everything.

"This is easier said than done. It is a huge challenge to make a game that will please and be fun for both veteran gamers with the expected depth and novice gamers who say ‘I don't get it’ but provide them with particular depth that can lead them to deeper points just as they become eager to play longer. Nintendo would like to tackle this enormous challenge."

On An Underwhelming E3 Presentation And The Wii Vitality Sensor
"As for the media briefing at E3, of course we had many internal discussions after that. Honestly speaking, none of us at Nintendo thought that our presentation at E3 was as good as it could have been… Now we strongly feel that we need to look into finding a better way to demonstrate the products' appeal better at E3 in these times where more people are watching it online via web cast not only in the US but all around the world, than the number of audience who actually watch it in the theatre.

"It seems like the Wii Vitality Sensor is a kind of product which we are having some difficulty in addressing its product concept. The majority of the audience at E3 responded to it like 'what in the world is Nintendo planning with a single pulse meter?'

"Traditionally, great games has made people excited and stimulated. Wii Vitality Sensor has great potential for various applications like measuring how horrified a player is in a horror title. What we are trying to propose first is a video game with a theme of relaxation, which is completely opposite from traditional ones, to enrich the users' lives... What if you were able to visualise how to unwind and relax, or check the condition of your automatic nerve by simply inserting your finger in the device once a day? Our new challenge that is different from past software development is to make a video game by using the visible activities of your automatic nerve.

"Before Wii Fit launched, everyone doubted how well it could sell. As for Wii Vitality Sensor, I think it will face similar doubts… We are hoping to make one such proposals a year, or every two years at best, to try and realise what no one has ever done before... We would like to deliver the actual product not too late in the year next year."

On Growth Opportunities And New Hardware
"Among the 295.6 million active users, 209.5 million people are playing with our products. To tell you the truth, we at Nintendo had set 200 million as an internal milestone, and we already surpassed it this spring. In addition, among 149.5 million of potential users – another room of expansion – there are 86.1 million people who have never tried Wii or DS yet. So numerically there is still a possibility to even double the current user population of Wii and DS. Thus we do not believe at all that the expansion has come to an end nor do we need a new console any time soon. So we have not set specific years for the lifespan of current game systems. Of course our employees are researching hardware and those in charge of hardware are already working on developing it. When our internal ideas and trend in the world match up, and when it's clear that we would be able to manufacture an abundant amount at an affordable price, we will be able to publicly speak about next hardware. At this time, we do not think that is in the near future… I'd like to emphasise at the outset that I do not share the idea that new hardware must be launched every five years."

On Hardware Pricing
"We are attributing the current slowing sales trend of hardware to the difference in sales standard when strong titles launch in the market to when those titles have been in the market a while, and not to the lack of competitiveness due to overvalue pricing or weak product appeal. Thus we are not planning on changing anything on prices right now."

Source: Nintendo