Following Nintendo's investor briefing, the company held a Q&A with investors and press. While we wait for the official English translation, we have a summary of info from the Japanese version. This includes comments from both outgoing President Tatsumi Kimishima and incoming President Shuntaro Furukawa.
- Furukawa's priority is to accelerate the momentum of Switch and to expand related business
- there's also a goal of expanding the mobile business
- the core of Nintendo’s business is in developing creative content, and most investment needs to go into that
- technology is advancing at tremendous speed
- if Nintendo finds a possible partner whose tech is highly compatible and good for the customers, an investment could be made
- Kimishima's primary role was to bring the Switch to market and deliver it to the customers in the way that was envisioned
- his secondary role was to change the executive system in order to quickly execute projects
- he was also creating mechanics which would allow the new generation to do well
- with authority and governance delegated more, younger managers were able to run the company and achieved success
- with various projects are progressing well, Kimishima feels that it’s a good time for a change his position
- the goal is to become a more vibrant Nintendo by placing new managers in charge
- it’ll be important to sell the Switch to people who never played a Nintendo console before
- Nintendo also wants to bring back those who have been played in the past, but have since left
- there are plans for games that will interest those who have not been playing games recently
- Nintendo wants to engage in a company-wide effort to achieve that, and that includes overseas subsidiaries
- the goal of shipping twenty million units in this fiscal year isn't easyto achieve, but Kimishima thinks it can be done
- in order to keep selling the Switch for a long time, Nintendo needs to continually launch new experiences
- Nintendo accumulated experience with launching numerous consoles, and that includes mistakes they've made
- Nintendo will make use of that experience while moving forward
- Nintendo would like to keep selling the Switch for as long as possible while reacting flexibly to changes in the market
- Nintendo expects 3DS demand to continue for the current fiscal year, especially among parents
- this is thanks to the rich library and a price that is easy to afford
- in the future, this situation may change if the Switch can transition from “one per household” to “one per person”
- the Switch won’t have a price that many parents can afford paying for all of their children any time soon
- Nintendo will keep tracking what kind of play experience and price customers are hoping for
- the company plans to keep selling the 3DS as long as there is demand
- at the moment, Nintendo feels that it’s a well-diversified product from the Switch
- Switch Online service will be positioned as one of the mechanics to encourage a deeper gameplay experience
- Nintendo is still preparing to launch the service, and this will bring some costs in the first half of the fiscal year
- Kimishima expects the percentage of digital sales to steadily increase in the future
- since there are still many customers who request exclusively packaged games, not all sales will become digital
- the rate of digital sales also varies depending on which game is being sold, who is purchasing it, and the age target
- games of some western developers have already reached 50% of digital sales
- even if the digital ratio increases, if total software sales decreases, it won’t contribute to profit
- the most important element remains to create good games that many customers will buy
from GoNintendo
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