Nintendo President: We Aren't Competing With Cell Phones Or The iPod

February 28th, 2009, 17:41 Posted By: wraggster

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata wants you all to know something: despite throwing music playback and a digital camera into the latest DSi, Nintendo have no intention of "directly competing with existing products".

That's right, after years and years of shying away from multimedia convergence like it was a steaming hot nothankyou.jpg sandwich, Nintendo have embraced the idea on the DSi, including features that we've never seen included directly on a Nintendo console before.

The casual observer (and hardcore observer, really) would think this was nothing but an attempt to push the DS on from being "just" a games player and into a bigger market, one currently occupied by do-it-all success stories like the iPhone. This bringing the DSi into, you know. Competition with such devices. Competition for consumer dollars and awareness.

But it's not!

No, Iwata would like you to ignore all notions of competition in the marketplace, and instead believe Nintendo are simply into pleasing people:

That's right. Nintendo doesn't have any intention of directly competing with existing products, but the mass media has a tendency to portray everything as a rivalry between opposing companies. It seems some people have the impression that we want to compete with cell phones or the iPod, that putting cameras or music players in our devices is out of character for us. I hope those who have such an impression will take an interest in what Nintendo can make when it dedicates itself to pleasing as many people as possible who pick up a DS, and I hope they'll actually pick one up themselves.

http://kotaku.com/5161839/nintendo-p...es-or-the-ipod

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