Please understand (why we’re making health products)
A couple months ago, Nintendo announced it would still be making hardware, but would also start a concurrent, health and wellness business — their Quality of Life platform. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, in an interview with Diamond.jp, went on to explain how Nintendo was expanding into new business areas.
“So even though we won’t chance the fact that our focus is on video games,” Iwata explained, “I felt the need to take that occasion to state that Nintendo is a company that can do whatever it wants.” Well, it sure feels that way, to the alternating delight and chagrin of fans.
Iwata explained that this lateral move is one inspired by his late predecessor Hiroshi Yamauchi. “Yamauchi always said ‘Nintendo is an entertainment company and should never be anything else,’ but he didn’t necessarily think ‘entertainment equals video games,'” he explained.
As for how Nintendo found its new entertainment focus, “Recently the words ‘quality of life’ have been coming up regularly. Entertainment is there to improve people’s quality of life. After your basic needs, there’s entertainment. However, when it came to improving people’s quality of life, I didn’t know the difference between us and household appliance makers.
“At the start of this year, I finally figured that the concept of ‘improving people’s quality of life with fun,’ with emphasis on the ‘fun,’ would be perfect for Nintendo. And that’s why I decided to focus on this during the financial results meeting in January.”
I’m sort of curious if this Quality of Life platform is a global one. And if it’s better than a Wii Fit balance board.
Iwata pledges to push Nintendo beyond games [CVG]
