In a speech at the B Dash Camp startup conference in Osaka, Nintendo’s President, Satoru Iwata, stated that copying the competition is not Nintendo’s style, and that he isn’t afraid of failure.
“When we talk about Nintendo we cannot ignore (former president) Hiroshi Yamauchi who just recently passed away. He always said that if you have failure, you don’t need to be too concerned. You always have good things and bad, and this reflects the history of Nintendo. If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out. Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge [the status quo] by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market.”
In addition, Iwata reflected on initial fears that he Pokemon brand would fail in the US.
“Will America accept cute monsters?” he asked, “No, they said. Some people even recommended to make Pikachu more muscular. If we followed their advice Pokemon would never have been the success that it was. Brain Training software (Brain Age) became a hit in Japan, and I proposed that we sell it globally. And even as I said that as the president, no one listened.”
What are your thoughts about the future of Wii U as well as the 3DS?
sounds like he knows what he was talking about, game cube tryed to be like the xbox and playstation and came in last, wii did its own thing and it’s the top selling gamebox. wiiu went hd like the others and isn’t doing so great. i know the next nintendo box will be great.