EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: iwata

So you’re likely waiting for Super Smash Bros Brawl to come out, since what kind of gamer are you if you’re not? I’ll tell you: you’re either Japanese or European, since the Japanese already have the game while the Europeans (that includes us South Africans even though we’re not European at all, in fact, I’m going to say PAL People from now on) are not waiting for the game, we’re waiting for the announcement of the game.

So, PAL People, what should we do while we wait? We could read all the spoilers Sakurai is posting on his Smash Bros Dojo site, but that would suck like knowing the winner of Survivor before watching it. What we could safely do is read the fantastic interview done by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata with the creator of Smash Bros, Masahiro Sakurai.

You’ll have to be all underhanded and read it on the Nintendo of America web site even though you’re not American, but I’m sure you can live with that.

Did I mention that I can’t wait for this game?

Gamespot posted an interesting interview with Nintendo president Satoru Iwata today.

The discussion is mainly around what kind of year 2007 was for Nintendo and how the Wii has caught on so remarkably, and a bit about the lack of high profile 3rd party games (the usual questions really). I found this bit quite interesting:

“I’m sad to say that last year, production couldn’t even keep up with Japan, US, and Europe’s demands. The scarcity of Wii units in the US and Europe is particularly serious. This is a result of not being able to build up stock at all over the summer due to the consistently active demand for the Wii throughout the year. If we had branched out into new markets under these circumstances, we wouldn’t have been able to meet demand. That’s why the expansion into new regions will take place this year.”

With that in mind, in South Africa we can be quite happy that Nintendo of Europe got the go-ahead to launch the Wii here last year, taking valuable guaranteed sales from countries like the UK. Then again, for Nintendo to grow further and really tap into the “blue ocean”, they’re going to have to nurture console gaming in places like China, India, Brazil, and then even the smaller developing markets.

South Africa already has an established market thanks mainly to Sony’s efforts (those pirate Nintendo consoles don’t count), so although it’s small (I’m doing a little research, give me time, but it seems to be about the size of a smaller European market), it’s probably a little easier a nut to crack than China or India.

Anyhow, read the interview; Iwata is a really intelligent guy.