Satoru Iwata has admitted that Nintendo is in a bit of a rut, thanks in part to lackluster sales and lower consumer hype of the upcoming Wii U. The fact remains that the recent quarter’s figures are not something to scoff at, and the largest gaming company in the world is going to ensure that fiscals like this never happen again.
"To begin with, I feel greatly accountable for missing our financial forecast for the half year ended September and revising downward our forecast for the full year," said Iwata during a financial results briefing.
"Strong momentum is very important for game platform businesses and a strong software lineup to vitalize a platform is necessary to maintain this momentum. In the first half of this year, however, we could not make the continuing sales of the first-party software released last year as we had planned, nor, in the course of preparation of the next platform, could we release new key titles for the existing platform in a timely fashion due to completion delays until the latter half of this year."
"As we learned a bitter lesson with the launch of the Nintendo 3DS, we are trying to take every possible measure so that the Wii U will have a successful launch."
To do that, Iwata noted that the company will be pursuing new genres to attract more people that might not necessarily be interested in gaming.
"Some of you may be thinking that, with the expansion of smartphones today, proposing new genres, such as the company did with Brain Training and Wii Fit, might be difficult," Iwata admitted.
"However, the company will aim to develop and launch products that can provide meaningful surprises to the public by taking advantage of the company's position of being able to make new proposals that integrate both hardware and software, and of its ability to develop products that can be accepted by a wide variety of consumers, irrespective of age, gender or past gaming experience."
We're sure to find out more information on this plan come E3 2012, when Nintendo is expected to reveal complete details on the console, which is reportedly going to be more powerful than both the Xbox 360 and PS3, although how much more powerful is not certain.
