Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has shared that whilst the company is prepared to accept failure, they also aren’t good at competing – instead preferring to strive to make something entirely new.
“When we talk about Nintendo we cannot ignore (former president) Hiroshi Yamauchi who just recently passed away. He always said that if you have failure, you don’t need to be too concerned. You always have good things and bad, and this reflects the history of Nintendo,” he explained to B Dash Camp Osaka 2013 attendees.
Differentiation is key for the company, something particularly clear from their recent hardware successes in both the Wii and Nintendo DS.
“If you do the same thing as others, it will wear you out. Nintendo is not good at competing so we always have to challenge [the status quo] by making something new, rather than competing in an existing market,” Iwata discussed.
“It’s often called the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’, looking for something that no one else is working on. When we created the DS, people said it was strange to have a dual display, and people said elderly people don’t play games. But they did. Opening the first door is when things are most interesting.”
Sadly such ideology isn’t ringing true for the Wii U as yet, although Nintendo will surely hope that they can turn the situation around in the run up to Christmas.
[Thanks The Bridge via MCV]
Iwata: Nintendo aren’t scared of failure
