One thing that we have found over the years is that video games themselves are a thing that have a tendency to be difficult for them to break out of a particular segment, or a particular group, or a particular group of people with particular interests.
One thing about the entertainment industry - it's not something that people need to survive.
When we considered what to do with the graphics capability of the Wii, we put more attention and focus on the ability to create new experiences rather than the quality of the graphics.
It's not part of our culture to even think about outright purchasing a third-party developer.
It's important not only to have the right timing of when the hardware is going to be released but also when we are going to be able to introduce quality software.
Sometimes you are physically tired at night, but your brain is functioning too much to go to sleep. If you can have software that helps you understand how you can shift from such a tense situation to being more relaxed, then that would help.
Here's a hypothesis I seriously believe: If there hadn't been a 'Pokemon' game, maybe the market for handheld game devices would have gone extinct.
Trust your passion. Believe in your dream.
In 1978, I entered the Tokyo Institute of Technology. I would have loved to study videogame programming, but nobody was teaching it then. So I went to classes on engineering and early computer science.
Sometimes, ideas are like good wine in that they just need time.
In Europe, we packed in Wii Sports with the console, so one way or another, people processed the Wii by enjoying Wii Sports. The unique, interactive nature of the game was spread thanks to the excitement from the consumer.
We are producing something people can live without. But we need to keep thinking what would make our products a priority purchase even if they are not a necessity. If we stop doing that, no matter how successful Nintendo is at the moment, things will start going wrong in no time.
The term 'innovative' or 'innovation' is often vague or ambiguous. But in our definition, innovation means to make something which people think impossible possible.
It was very fortunate for Wii that a lot of households around the world decided to connect the Wii to the living room TV.
Our approach is not to look at the successes of other people and try to repeat those successes. We don't look at the success of 'Grand Theft Auto 3' and think that maybe if we create games for older audiences will see a similar success.
When the economy is strong, people tend to buy three things from the top of their wish list. But when things are bad, people often buy only the first thing on their list.
Typical tech-driven companies or hardware-driven companies always lay out the so-called roadmaps when it comes to making the new hardware. So, in other words, availability of certain technologies dictates when the company is intending to make the new hardware.
Games already pretty much have reached the point of photo-realism. Working on more intense graphics is not the only path we can take anymore. Simply relying on the sheer horsepower of the machine will not bring the industry a bright future.
I don't think that free games are something new. On the PC, there have always been free games. But finding them was not always easy. With the popular products like the iPhone, now it is easier.
When it came time to take a job, I had the distinction of joining the smallest company of any graduate in my class. I left to become only the fifth full-time employee of HAL, and when I told my father this, you can imagine, it was not the happiest moment in the history of my family.
