Iwata denies Nintendo has lost its edge to iPhone
Apple is targeting different market with products, says president
Satoru Iwata has denied Nintendo has lost its edge following the release of iPhone and the announcements from its rivals of their own motion detecting technology.
People suggesting the company is trying to leverage its DS business in response to their movements are incorrect, Iwata told investors during a briefing.
"It is true that the current Nintendo DS business is not that heated up as it used to be sometime ago, when no one could tell how far ahead DS might be able to grow," he explained. "On the other hand data [has shown] that DS has not lost its footing at all. Actually it has been even increasing its footing all around the world."
Apple's success with iPhone was down to its successful expansion from the already popular iPod to the phone business, said Iwata.
"Because the original iPod business itself was big, my view is that Apple was able to leverage a very good timing to expand its business to telephones just when the original iPod business was nearing its saturation point.
"In other words, in my opinion, iPhone did not grow itself to a huge business, but something already grown up was able to prevent its growth speed from slowing down."
However, Nintendo doesn't plan to go after the same "affluent" consumers as Apple, Iwata continued. "Realistically Nintendo does not try to reach out only to those who can afford to pay several thousands yen monthly."
On the subject of Microsoft and Sony entering Nintendo's market space with their upcoming motion detection technologies, Iwata argued it remained to be seen if they could compete with it on software.
"If fun and interesting software to take advantage of the technology could be created that easily, a number of other titles which are more fun than Wii Sports must have been already launched for Wii. Why in real life are not so many?"