Nintendo President: Our Future Is As an 'Entertainment' Company

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime appeared at Seattle's Geekwire Summit on Wednesday to speak broadly about the company's future, and, while the talk didn't include new product reveals, it proved illuminating about what to expect from the big N in the future. The short version: Nintendo would rather be defined as an "entertainment" company, not a gaming one. Fils-Aime says the company currently has three "pieces of business": a dedicated video game business ("the way most of our consumers interact with us"), a mobile gaming business, and "leveraging our intellectual property (IP) in a variety of ways." The latter includes previously announced plans for a Universal Studios attraction in Osaka, Japan (still slated to open ahead of Tokyo's next Olympics hosting run in 2020) and a Super Mario film produced by Illumination Entertainment (Minions, Despicable Me). When asked about Nintendo's future focus on a company-wide level, Fils-Aime said: "It's about Mario, Zelda, Pokemon -- all these wonderful intellectual properties. How we leverage these across a variety of entertainment platforms is how we're looking to grow the company."

He went on to say that he doesn't see Xbox and PlayStation as competitors. Ars reports: "He counted the exact number of minutes per day and said that outside of the time a consumer spends eating, sleeping, working, and going to school, 'all of the rest of that time is entertainment time. That's what I compete for, minute by minute. That time you spend surfing the Web, watching a movie, watching a telecast of a conference: that's all entertainment time we're competing for. My competitive set is much bigger than my direct competitors in Sony and Microsoft. I compete for time. When I do that, I have to be creative and innovative in order to win that battle.'"

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about Mario, Zelda, Pokemon -- all these wonderful intellectual properties. How we leverage these across a variety of entertainment platforms is how we're looking to grow the company.

In other words:

Our hardware is generations out of date, our continuously rehashed games are tired, we've run out of gimmicks and we still treat everyone, developers and users alike, like shit.

"The people kicking our asses aren't our competitors! And I'm not just saying that because they are kicking our asses."

Mario, Zelda, Pokemon?

[DontBeAMoran]

When asked about Nintendo's future focus on a company-wide level, Fils-Aime said: "It's about Mario, Zelda, Pokemon -- all these wonderful intellectual properties. How we leverage these across a variety of entertainment platforms is how we're looking to grow the company."

What about Metroid, you insensitive clod?

Re:

[alvinrod]

Metroid has always been a red-headed step child as far as Nintendo's love has been concerned. I don't know if I fully fault them either as despite the Prime series being great, they weren't enough to justify the kind of investment that fans of the series want. Zelda and Mario games are close to an order of magnitude better in terms of sales. Pokemon put even those heavy hitters to shame and is pretty much a fucking printing press.

I almost want to dig the Wii out of the closet so I can play the Prime tril

Re:

[blahplusplus]

I don't know if I fully fault them either.

It is... Nintendo basically is an insular company, for instance starfox wouldn't have died as a property if they'd given it to Voltion (the people who made freespace 1 and 2) see below...

Freespace 2 open (vid)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Starfox Zero WiiU review

http://www.metacritic.com/game... [metacritic.com]

Freespace 2 score metacritic

https://www.metacritic.com/gam... [metacritic.com]

Basically Team voltion/descent has been rotting for 20 years as Miyamoto and company have fucked the pooch on starfox franchise, even though that team i

Re:Mario, Zelda, Pokemon?

[commodore64_love]

What about some NEW characters? These guys were all invented in the 1980s..... the fucking 8-bit era. Surely they can invent some new heroes in the modern 64-bit era? Maybe? Possibly?

Sadly no. It appears most innovation comes from third party companies.

Re:

[Merk42]

I have an Inkling they're still able to create new characters....

Re:

[Djoulihen]

I'd even say they welcome new characters with open Arms

Re:

[commodore64_love]

Haha funny. I should have said new "lead characters" that represent new franchises.

Re:

[Merk42]

Inklings in Splatoon are new lead characters that represent new franchises.

OK

[bobstreo]

I'm two generations behind on Nintendo consoles. I skipped the WIIU and the switch, because I wanted more than the latest Legends of Pokemon games.

Nintendo should just give up on console hardware, and port to PS and Xbox, and make some nice controllers...

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

Indeed, the Sony and Microsoft controllers really suck.

Re:

[renegadesx]

Not sure if troll or not? Nintendo has basically given up on the home console business. The Switch is a handheld (a market Nintendo has always thrived at) with a dock. They dont have a dedicated home console anymore, they don't need one, they games they want to make work on their handheld which is hugely successful.
Why should they port games to their competitors? Because you dont like the majority of it's library? Many people disagree with you and are voting with their wallets. Welcome to capitalism!

Re: OK

[renegadesx]

People have been predicting the death of consoles since the 90s, and the death of handhelds for at least 10 years. Yet the sales numbers and profitability continue to prove these people wrong every time. Look at the PS4. Handhelds is something that Nintendo always nails. Home consoles not so much, the Wii was lightning in a bottle, unless they know they have the next big successful gimmick like the Wii they should stick to handhelds. The Switch is the right strategy they need for now.

Fun in playing

[DrYak]

You mean their underpowered, PLASTIC screen portable that was obsolete before it was released?

You know most people play game for the fun those procure, not for number of MHz that a peculiar CPU in the device has.

Since somewhere in the 90s when technical limitation stopped being to extreme for 2D and somewhere since the 00s when 3D quality was enough to not limit expression, the raw perf of hardware don't matter that much.

What matter is the quality of the games.

And Nintendo is a big enough brand to manage to attract a good number of developers. Thus ensuring to have a decent ecosystem of quality game

Re:

[Daetrin]

So #1, skipping out on the Wii U was a good idea. But it's a mistake to dismiss the Switch out of hand. Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey are both critically acclaimed, and Breath of the Wild in particular either totally re-imagined the series and/or returned it to its NES Legend of Zelda/Link to the Past roots. (As someone who was never to get into any of the earlier 3D Zelda games, including Ocarina of Time, i tend to view it as the later.) And most of the other franchise sequels have been pret

Bowsette Company

[Cipheron]

The internet doesn't want to hear this stuff, Nintendo, when you haven't even commented yet on the great job we did with Bowsette.

Re:

[Daetrin]

I think Nintendo was like, been there, done that [forbes.com] :)

.

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

It's OK though. All good things come to an end, and you really can't keep running the company like it's still the 90s.

The hell you can't [youtube.com].

If I were Nintendo

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted to transition more to an entertainment company, one of the first things I'd do is start working with Netflix and Amazon to get their streaming apps on the Switch. It's basically a portable tablet that also doubles as a game console. Yes, phones/phablets/tablets, even plenty of TVs, can replicate these features, but none really have the gaming experience like on the Switch, and what does it really hurt Nintendo to have the apps available for the Switch? I might also approach the Kodi devs and wor

Sony?

[Dan East]

a Super Mario film produced by Illumination Entertainment (Minions, Despicable Me).

Why not Sony? Ha!

time you spend surfing the Web, watching a movie

[rjejr]

Well if that's your concern, simple solution, put a web browser and Netflix and Youtube on Switch, problem solved. You stupid stupid overpaid mouthpiece of a man.

Nothing new here

[rsilvergun]

Japanese game companies are always trying to branch out into multi-media. They've always been a little worried folks will give up on games. And games don't have the same allure as working on movies or even TV.

I compete for time

[manu0601]

I compete for time

We all know time is money.

Re:

[Merk42]

Where is my,

Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Castlevaina, Megaman, live action, really invested films? The NCU?

Funny you should ask [gematsu.com].

Wii as a multimedia platform

[buzz_mccool]

I always thought Nintendo EOLed the Wii and the Wii network services way too quickly. What would it have cost to keep Wii News, Wii Weather, along with the multi-player gaming, web browsing, movies etc. going on all those platforms? They were in so many households. A backward compatible Wii+ with just an HDMI port and a speed bump would have sold better than the Wii U (and even have sold fine as a complementary product along side the Wii U).

Re:

[drinkypoo]

What would it have cost to keep Wii News, Wii Weather, along with the multi-player gaming, web browsing, movies etc. going on all those platforms?

Sales. It would have cost them sales of new consoles. If they don't bring out a new console, they can't sell it to you. Unlike the competition, Nintendo makes a profit on every new console sold. They need to sell you new consoles in order to make money. The competition doesn't, or at least not as soon, because they make their money on games licensing, because they have ever so much more volume than Nintendo. They can afford to wait until the sale of the games tapers off to release their new system.

/sarcasm How's the movies biz doing Nintendo?

[UnknownSoldier]

> a Super Mario film produced by Illumination Entertainment

/sarcasm Because the last Super Mario Bros [youtube.com] movie was such a masterpiece. Oh wait, it was a piece of shit. But THIS new movie based on a game will be different, right? Hello Nintendo, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you ...

Instead, how about you STOP with the fucking retarded copyright claims against "Let's Play" (YouTube) videos who are providing FREE ADVERTISING for your IP.