Iwata on Nintendo’s IP, why the company is targeting smart devices aggressively

When we further analyze the situation, Nintendo’s strength lies in, or our consumers see the most value in and are willing to pay money for, Nintendo IP, such as our software and characters, and we have been creating and nurturing them together with the history of home video game entertainment.

In order to flexibly deal with the developments of the Internet and social media as well as the changes in the people’s lifestyles, we will start strategic endeavors so that Nintendo can maximize the value of our IP that we have used primarily for our own dedicated game platforms.
I announced Nintendo’s management policy of “more actively utilizing Nintendo IP” and “taking advantage of smart devices” in our Corporate Management Policy Briefing back in January 2014. The endeavors that I am explaining now are in line with these management policies.

On the other hand, if we are to maximize the value of Nintendo IP while the competition to attract consumers’ attention is fierce, we must deliver the value of Nintendo IP in a stress-free fashion to our consumers around the world who are living in varying environments.

This is why Nintendo has decided to utilize smart devices aggressively.
Very simply put, it is structurally the same as when Nintendo, which was founded 125 years ago when there were no TVs, started to aggressively take advantage of TV as a communication channel. Now that smart devices have grown to become the window for so many people to personally connect with society, it would be a waste not to use these devices.

Although this is something we intend to discuss more concretely in other opportunities, we are making progress in our efforts to maximize the value of Nintendo IP for our consumers via a variety of different communication methods, including licensing our IP to visual content and a range of other character merchandising products.

For more than 30 years now, Nintendo has been creating various IP for its game software, and as new iterations of the franchises are introduced, the value of each IP is strengthened. Today, there are many fans for each IP, and each one has different consumers with different lifestyles.
Therefore, it is natural that the best way to communicate our IP to each consumer also differs. We choose the most appropriate method to try to maximize the number of people who encounter Nintendo IP and, as a result, we will further expand the gaming population. This is our basic strategy.
Among the variety of different communication media, smart devices show outstanding strength when it comes to global use rate, contact frequency and total contact time even though each contact period is short.

Of course, Nintendo will utilize smart devices as communication media for Nintendo IP. In addition, so that our consumers will be closely connected with them, we will deploy a game business which takes advantage of Nintendo IP.