After the unfortunate passing of former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata earlier this year, Nintendo has recently published a letter in which its President Tatsumi Kimishima talks about Nintendo’s future in a new Message from the President
Though the first paragraph and the first half of the second paragraph are very much the same, telling readers about the company history and goals, major changes in the message appear thereafter.
In his last letter, Iwata’s message mostly concentrated on Nintendo’s Quality of Life (aka QOL) as a way to expand the company’s business by entering other areas such as health.
In the recently-published letter, Kimishima’s first message talks about the company’s current and future projects such as the gaming platform NX, its entry into the smart device market, sales of amiibo toys and upcoming cards, theme park attractions based on famous characters, the new My Nintendo account system, and more.
Kimishiwa doesn’t go into detail about any of the projects, but it’s a clear look the company is opening itself up to new challenges.
Here’s the letter published yesterday on Nintendo’s Investor Relations site:
Since the launch of the Family Computer System (called Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan) in 1983, Nintendo has been offering the world unique and original entertainment products under the development concept of hardware and software integration. In the field of home entertainment, the video game industry is one of the few industries established in Japan that spread around the world, and Nintendo has established itself as a well-known brand truly representing video game culture throughout the world.
With the belief in our mission to put smiles on people’s faces around the world through products and services, we have followed our basic strategy of expanding the gaming population by offering products that can be enjoyed by everyone regardless of age, gender or gaming experience. We now want to take this mission a step further by increasing the number of people who have access to Nintendo’s intellectual property (Nintendo IP).
We are actively offering Nintendo IP in a variety of different ways so that not only current players of our video games but all consumers – including those who used to play but currently do not and even those who have never played our video games before – will also come in contact with Nintendo IP.
For our dedicated video game platform business, Nintendo is currently developing a gaming platform codenamed “NX” with a brand-new concept and our unique software-led hardware-software integrated business will continue to constitute the core business for Nintendo. For the purpose of maximizing the population that interact with Nintendo IP, we will also enter into the smart device gaming business and aim to generate revenue and profit from it as well as to create synergy with the dedicated video game platform business.
As for other initiatives to use Nintendo IP actively, we launched a new product called amiibo – Nintendo characters that come in figure or card form that work with our video games. They have been well received by many of our consumers. Furthermore, our endeavors will not be limited to video games. We are planning to offer new attractions at theme parks by using Nintendo characters. We will also strive to further increase opportunities for consumers to come in contact with Nintendo characters in their daily lives, such as through visual content and merchandising.
Thus, we are now expanding how we leverage Nintendo IP in various ways beyond our traditional use of them predominantly within the dedicated video game platform business. Furthermore, in our attempt to establish a sustainable and continual relationship with our consumers, we are creating a new membership service called “My Nintendo” and a new account system, which should work as a bridge between our dedicated video game platforms and other devices, or even environments where our consumers can get in touch with Nintendo IP and, thus, will work as a mechanism to maximize the number of people that interact with Nintendo IP.
Nintendo will continue to flexibly transform itself by adapting to changing times while constantly valuing the spirit of originality based on the belief that the “true value of entertainment lies in its uniqueness” – and will continue to provide products and services that people will be surprised and delighted by.
Nintendo intends to make progress with the support and encouragement of its shareholders and investors.
Tatsumi Kimishima
President, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
[Sources]: Nintendo: Message from the President – by Tatsumi Kimishima (Dec. 2015); Message from the President – by Satoru Iwata (2015) – (via archive.org).
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