Nintendo's financial Q&A roundup

Nintendo has published a transcript of its recent Q&A session from last week's financial results briefing on its Japanese website, and company president Satoru Iwata touched on numerous interesting points as brought up by the press. Below's a summary of the 5-page document.

* The "hard-core gamers' titles lineup", including Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, will be released "from around the end of this summer to the end of this year."

* When asked on the amount of titles being developed for the DS, Nintendo welcomed the increase in future titles, yet was concerned that too many titles were being released in a certain time period.

* On the topic of the acquisition of Monolith Software, Nintendo commented that they have had a long term professional relationship with Mr. Sugiura, President of Monolith, and that the software Sugiura wants to create is the same software that Nintendo is after for the Wii and DS, which is part of the reason why the acquisition took place. Nintendo said "If certain conditions are met, we may do the same thing in the future. However, we will be very careful and selective, so that we will only partner with people with whom Nintendo can create a long-term working relationship."

* Nintendo said there's the opportunity to create revenue in new channels, but there's no intention to charge for existing free content, barring the Internet Channel, which is only free until the end of June.

* They commented that they intend to intensify their R&D position, and are hoping that third-party developers will "see it as a good business opportunity."

* Nintendo said that although they are developing 45 titles for Wii and 79 for DS, Miyamoto cannot take care of all of them, so they would like Miyamoto to focus on the games his teams are making, and "focus his energies to realize the highest quality level so that other companies will think that they cannot duplicate it."

* Nintendo commented that the US market is the last to make the change from GBA to DS, although Iwata commented that in terms of the Wii, "the Americas are yet to show their real strength."

* Expectations are higher for the Wii in America than in Japan, with NOA telling Iwata that "We have no recollection of a time when our products were being talked about this much in non-business situations," saying that the Wii's ease of use and America's practise of home parties had been a good match.

* Nintendo commented that the testers of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption had reported a similar play feel to that of FPS games using a keyboard and mouse on the PC, and they find more potential with the Wii-mote and nunchuk combination than with other console controllers.

* Declining to comment on the resignation of Sony's Ken Kutaragi specifically, when asked if Nintendo would be "headhunting" Kutaragi for a position at the company, they commented "I don't think we will do that."

* Nintendo also detailed the production of handhelds, with DS production at 2.5 million per month, but declined to mention a specific number for Wii production, commenting that production is increasing due to massive demand for the console.

* Nintendo is not looking to expand to more outlets to sell Wii consoles until the current demand shortage is met.

* The amount of consoles produced isn't considered a "yearly production limit" but more of a target that is appropriate among many different scenarios, as Nintendo makes numerous scenarios ranging from "extremely conservative" to "extremely aggressive".

* Nintendo couldn't give a prediction on the lifespan of the DS, saying it can vary depending on the combination of software and hardware. They also pointed out that home consoles have had a lifespan of about 5 years so far, and handhelds have "had a comparatively shorter lifespan."

* Nintendo have also been experiencing surprising new uses of the DS, including in an exhibition of Escher art, in which museum patrons are given a DS while touring the exhibit, on which information about art works could be accessed, including the ability to virtually examine a fragile note by Escher, by using the DS touch screen. One unexpected outcome was that patrons were spending more time in the exhibit than estimated.

* They commented on the lack of in-store demo booths for Wii, saying that the controller security problem, and space requirements for people to experience the Wii are the primary reasons for not having any, at least in Japan. However, it was commented that when there is less active software and a wired controller will not restrict gameplay, they will reconsider it.

* Nintendo considers video games as "something to which a human being makes an input and from which the human being receives something more valuable than the labor needed to make the input." One example was cooking software for the DS, with the reward being that you can eat what results from using the software.

* Without revealing too many details, Nintendo revealed that they have projects in the works, the results of which will be revealed to the market in 6 months to a year from now. They also said that they would prefer to stick to their hardware-software integrated approach to business, rather than licensing software for enterprises like mobile phones.

* They then went on to say that their success with the Wii and DS over the last year was not entirely planned, although they have had 2 million-seller titles in Japan for the Wii, and DS titles with 3 or 4 million copies sold. They attributed their success to a social phenomena, which was not predicted.

* Nintendo also explained that their employee base in Japan is around 1500 people, with the global amount of employees around the 3000 mark, and close to 1 trillion yen in sales.