Striving to Put Smiles on the Faces of Everyone We Touch

This simple message encapsulates our overall CSR mission, a goal that we continue to pursue.

Nintendo's Goal — Putting Smiles on the Faces of Everyone We Touch —

I always emphasize the Nintendo goal of putting smiles on the faces of everyone we touch whenever I visit our Group companies, both in Japan and throughout the world, and I think I'm getting the message across. I want everyone at Nintendo to know that I expect everything that they do, their every action, to lead to this goal. If what we are doing moves us in this direction, then we shall make progress with the confidence that what we are doing will benefit the society we serve; but if we see that what we are doing is not bringing us closer to our goal, then we must stop and ask ourselves whether we are doing something wrong. This is a simple message, but one that clearly expresses our CSR standard and highlights our unique stance. Although our employees are all over the world, and have different cultures and customs, we are all unified by our focus on achieving Nintendo's corporate mission.

Working to Spread the Word about the New Potential and Beneficial Effect of Games

At Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the world's largest exhibition of video games, held in Los Angeles in June 2009, the people who visited the Nintendo booth told us that the atmosphere at Nintendo was completely different, that it was filled with smiles. We exhibited our New Super Mario Bros. Wii game, in which it is possible for four people to play together. What we saw were people who spoke different languages, who had never met before, gathering together and enjoying a single group activity. The game brought them together, putting smiles on their faces and friendship in their hearts. This, I believe, exemplifies how a game can contribute to society.

From 2008, we have introduced innovative products and services such as Daigasso! Band Brothers DX (sold only in Japan, as of December 2009) and Flipnote Studio. These outstanding products make it possible for users to create and share their work on the Internet. This innovative feature provides a means for creative talent to be publicized and recognized, and it helps create a synergistic environment in which creative effort spurs yet more intense creation as greater numbers of people interact with and expand upon what others have created. I feel that this new system is one of the game world's contributions to the creation of diverse communities vibrant with interaction.

Nintendo continues to search for ways to optimize the gaming experience so that everyone can safely and easily participate regardless of their level of gaming knowledge and experience, and so that the enjoyment of gaming can be enriched through interaction with others. Nintendo calls this "Social Entertainment" and we are working to realize its full potential.

While the Internet makes it possible for us to connect gaming devices and greatly enhances our flexibility to create and deliver content, it has also presented legal and social challenges for Nintendo such as the possibility of unwelcome content being distributed to end-users. Due to the anonymous nature of online gaming, a small number of people have exhibited bad "netiquette," resulting in threatening, hurtful or other types of inappropriate behavior. Nintendo has sought to meet such challenges by proactively providing parental-control functions and access to effective filtering. We consider it important to improve these functions in order to make them easier for parents to understand and use. To enable our consumers to enjoy our products and services with the utmost safety and confidence, Nintendo continues to improve both the legal and ethical aspects of its validation process for product development applications.

We face various challenges whenever we strive for something new. However, at Nintendo, we believe that we are capable of helping the people we serve have fun and enjoy more fulfilling lives. Therefore, we fully understand the importance of eagerly meeting and overcoming each challenge that comes our way as we work to fully convey the potential of games to as many people as possible. We consider this to be an essential aspect of Nintendo's CSR.

Picturing the Smiles

In order to put smiles on the faces of everyone Nintendo touches, it is essential that we ensure the safety and quality of our products. To accomplish this important goal, we share our CSR philosophy with external production partners and work closely with them to make sure that they diligently maintain the highest standards. Based on the results of our careful inspections of production partners, we thoroughly explain to them the goals and importance of good CSR practices to enhance their awareness and clarify what should or should not be done in response to changes in their environment. Last year, we inspected fifteen major production partners, asked them to improve in various areas, and we have already performed follow-up visits at three of them to check on their improvements.

Meanwhile, Nintendo considers it necessary to investigate the actual environmental impact created by our overall business activities. Although Nintendo DS and Wii incorporated designs for energy conservation, the expansion of our business creates new challenges in our ongoing search for ways to reduce environmental impact, challenges that we eagerly accept and commit ourselves to answering in ways that lead to continuous growth and measurable benefits to society. While it is not always easy to recognize and control environmental impact in our supply chain, we feel that it is essential for us to devote sincere efforts and tangible resources to achieving quantifiable progress in the effective management of environmental impact. We recognize this as our responsibility to the next generation.

Using the Power of Smiles to Realize the Future We Envision

Nintendo's mission is entertainment, and our job is to pleasantly surprise those who choose Nintendo products. By "surprise" we mean envisioning a future that no one thinks possible and achieving it in the near future. Nintendo continues to be a source of such surprises in CSR activities as well, as we strive to achieve our ultimate goal of putting smiles on the faces of everyone we touch. Some may say, "Is it really possible?" At Nintendo, we know it is! We know it is possible for us to provide opportunities for families to enhance the quality time that they spend together, and for strangers to become friends through the exciting potential of games, which contributes to the formation of a society where relationships deepen and smiles multiply. To make this a reality, we strive to reach our goals and share our progress with society through our CSR report. Nintendo works to put smiles on the faces of everyone we touch and, encouraged by those smiles, we welcome the joyful challenge of putting smiles on even more faces and taking positive strides in the future to promote this mutually beneficial exchange.