During a recent Q&A with investors and analysts, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata shared more of his thoughts on the company’s plans to develop apps—and perhaps even games—for smart devices, in order to help advertise and promote Nintendo’s own games and platforms.
“Consumers who acquired information only through TV or other mass media in the past now get their information through smart devices or the Internet,” Iwata explained to those in attendance.
“With the growth of the Internet, PCs and smart devices, as well as social media that enables you to see easily what others are saying, have become such important methods with which people gather information and make judgments. The key aspect is that Nintendo would like to establish a firm channel on smart devices through which we can connect with consumers.”
Iwata added that this approach would allow not only Nintendo, but also third-party developers on Nintendo platforms, to promote their games to potential consumers.
“However, we cannot expect consumers to activate our application every day if we only establish a channel that is solely dedicated to advertising,” Iwata said. “We would have to make efforts to provide a channel for consumers that makes them entertained, pleased and happy in order to have them use our application frequently. The application market for smart devices is already extremely competitive, so it is generally very difficult to have consumers activate a single application on a continual basis.”
As a result, Iwata says, the goal is to have these apps and games keep their users engaged over a long period of time.
“Once we have established such an environment, however, we will be able to dramatically change the relationship between Nintendo and consumers,” Iwata feels. “In addition, while we had no other choice but to use TV commercials in the past, we feel that adding such a new communication tool will be a cost-effective measure as a whole, so we are thinking about this issue in a holistic manner.”
