El producto que nintendo anunciará en primavera...

August 18, 2003 (TOKYO) -- Nintendo Co, Ltd President Satoru Iwata said that the company is developing a new home game product.

"By next spring, I should be able to talk about a product entirely different from anything now existing," he said.

Iwata was speaking at the company's business policy briefing session held on Aug. 7.

However, Iwata declined to give any details of the new product and said only, "It'll be something anyone can enjoy easily."

After the briefing, Iwata said, "It's a sort of conglomeration of hardware and software," leading the reporter to suspect it might be a new type of home game machine.

A sense of crisis underlies Iwata's announcement of timing for launching the new product without giving any clear picture of what it will be. This sense of crisis is a major concern for Nintendo's management. It concerns the next-generation game machines "PSP" and "PSX," which Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCE) already has announced for the market.

"Nintendo's stock price fell when SCE simply showed an optical disc without unveiling the actual new product," Iwata said.

He added, "Of course, we are working on our next product, and we felt the need to announce our intermediate strategy."

At the briefing, Iwata discussed the next-generation game-related products, and also commented on his sense of crisis over the shrinking game market as a whole. In fact, domestic shipments of game hardware were worth 164.6 billion yen in 2002, down 32.8% from the previous year, while those of game software dropped by 8.6% from the preceding year to 336.7 billion yen.

Iwata discussed the reason for the shrinking game market.

"As game software grew more capable of handling larger-volume, complicated data, the hurdle for the users to play became higher and higher," he said.

"The users' time for entertainment is limited, and they are beginning to drift away from overly sophisticated game software," Iwata said.

He also said that in order to bring the users back to the game market, "it is important to introduce simple games that anyone can quickly understand how to operate and play," and criticized the game industry's tendency to shift toward "thick and heavy, long and large" items.

With a view to keeping the users from turning away, Iwata disclosed a plan for fencing in the game users, in addition to commenting on the contents of the game software now being developed. He said that he plans to open up within this year a "Club Nintendo," a membership-system Web site through which game software and other related items can be purchased.

Nintendo plans to offer two types of services through this membership site. One is the point card system similar in nature to a mileage service offered by various airlines whereby the users can accumulate points depending on the amounts purchased. The points can be exchanged in proportion to the number of points with game controllers or other premium items that are not for sale.

The other is a service to recommend products suited to the users' needs judged on the basis of their records of purchase.

The company feels that TV commercials' sales promotion effects are decreasing, and expects that the membership site will be an effective way to promote sales. Iwata hopes to secure 300,000 to 500,000 members within a year after starting up the services, and "would like to increase the number to millions in the years to come."

As for the online game system now being talked about, Iwata denied the possibility of taking part in it at this stage.

"We are not at all interested in any monthly-fee collecting membership system," he added.