Nintendo canned new handheld project
Entirely new hardware product was complete 'in the last three years'
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has revealed that the company has created - and completed work on - an entirely new handheld gaming device at some point in the past three years, but decided that it wouldn't do anything for the momentum of the business and ditched it.
“In the history of Nintendo, there are several such examples," he told CNBC, declining to reveal any details of the product. "But when we are launching new hardware, the most important is thing is to sustain the momentum. If introducing new hardware won't do anything to do that, well…"
Iwata also confirmed the company's stance on price points, echoing UK boss David Yarnton's words to GamesIndustry.biz yesterday.
"Right now, we have no plans at all about a price cut," he said. "We are going to start launching the stronger software in the later half of the year and we are confident [we will] regain the momentum," he added, referring to a stall in particular in Wii sales in Japan.
"People often talk about the price cut as if it's an almighty weapon. The fact of the matter is that what a price cut can do is rather limited. In the long history of videogames, at the time of the price cut we see a momentary hike in sales, but usually that can not sustain its momentum and it soon comes down to below the price cut level."
The Nintendo figurehead also had some words of reassurance for investors who might be looking at the motion control announcements made by Sony and Microsoft with some concern.
"We have the greater potential to create the blue ocean market when people are sceptical," he said, referring to the blue ocean/red ocean theory of competition. "So when we realise that other people are coming into [this] market there are two things we [can] do. One is trying to intensify the fun nature of something we are already doing. The other is try to create a new blue ocean."
One such new 'blue ocean' was hinted at during the Nintendo press conference at E3 in the form of the Wii Vitality Sensor - something which might sound a bit odd, although Iwata is confident.
"The US market might be challenging," he said, "but everybody was sceptical of the sales potential [of Brain Age]. Even after the Japanese sale showed results, people in the US were sceptical. 'It's just a Japan thing that can't be translated to the US market,' [they thought]."
Nintendo's share price closed down 1.6 per cent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange today at JPY 25,360 (USD 263).