Nintendo’s current President, Satoru Iwata, recently discussed the future of Nintendo and former President,  Hiroshi Yamauchi, with Diamond.jp. Iwata said, “Yamauchi was one to always say, ‘Nintendo is a company for entertainment, and it shouldn’t be for anything else,’ and he didn’t necessarily think that entertainment equals video games.”

“So even though we won’t chance the fact that our focus is on video games, I felt the need to take that occasion to state that Nintendo is a company that can do whatever it wants.”

 

“Recently the words ‘quality of life’ have been coming up regularly. Entertainment is there to improve people’s quality of life. After your basic needs, there’s entertainment. However, when it came to improving people’s quality of life, I didn’t know the difference between us and household appliance makers.

 

“At the start of this year, I finally figured that the concept of ‘improving people’s quality of life with fun,’ with emphasis on the ‘fun’, would be perfect for Nintendo. And that’s why I decided to focus on this during the financial results meeting in January.”

 

Iwata took over as Nintendo’s President in 2002 after Yamauchi retired. The Wii U launched in 2012 and has not had much positive news since. The Wii U has failed to meet the expectations originally set for it. In 2013, former president Yamauchi passed away. Since then, Nintendo has been searching for a new direction, emphasizing quality of life.

 

 

My Opinion:

 

This doesn’t sound to me like a company that plans on appealing to the hardcore gamer. Nintendo hasn’t been doing that for a while now and it sure seems like they are going to continue focusing on other things. While I do like some of the different things they bring to the table, I hate the idea of them no longer putting all their focus into what made them so great.

 

 

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Ryan Latuso is a new editor for MONG. Follow him on IGN.