Iwata:

There have been various conditions at play in the game business, such as a history of localization taking an extremely long time, a variety of marketing constraints and circumstances in each country, and the fact that the license needed to sell games have not always been granted globally. In a sense, the region-lock has existed more for reasons having to do with the seller than the consumers. That has been the situation throughout the history of video game systems, and as for what should be done going forward, there may be advantages for the consumers and also for us if they were unlocked. Conversely, unlocking them would mean having to resolve different issues that would subsequently arise. While we have not decided whether we will unlock them or not, we do recognize that it is an issue that needs to be considered in the future.

Iwata:

First, in regard to smart devices, the advantage of cloud servers is always being connected to consumers through the Internet. Thus, we can do many things with that connection. Another advantage the cloud offers is that the processing capacity of our servers can be readily increased or decreased in accordance with a rise or fall in consumers, enabling us to run cost-efficient operations. Of course, there are possibilities in the game business for utilizing these merits of smart devices and cloud services. On the other hand, as was previously said, our aim of utilizing smart devices is to create even stronger ties with our consumers. As I have stated before, we draw the line at using the cloud and smart devices to directly carry out our video game business. Therefore, if you are asking whether we plan to directly carry out our video game business using the cloud and smart devices as we will with QOL, the answer is, “No.” If the question is whether we are interested in utilizing them, naturally the answer is, “Yes.” We are actively considering utilizing smart devices to create ties with our consumers and use those ties in the world of video games, as well as examining how we can deepen consumers’ interest in video games to increase the number of participants in our platforms. At present, we are moving ahead with a variety of preparations.

Iwata:

Nintendo has been in the entertainment business for a very long time, and we have thoroughly been trying to understand how and why people become immersed in video games, namely the situation in which people are compelled to play as they get more rewards than the effort they put in. Sometimes our efforts turn out the way we expect, but sometimes they do not. Some consumers resonate strongly with what we offer and others do not. Consumer reactions vary depending on the types of products or services. What is important here is how we utilize our past experiences for the QOL business. We understand that there are two issues. The first one is the hurdle that consumers are forced to go to some effort to measure their biological information, in other words, they have to do something out of the ordinary. If we forced people to wear something or sit down in front of a machine and wait for a few minutes, they would not continue to do so unless they received very large rewards for that action. So, in order for them to continue doing so, the first thing we need to do is to create a situation as close to their usual sleep routine as possible so all they have to do is to go to bed in the same place as usual and sleep. The “Five ‘Non’ Sensing” concept I introduced today is intended for that purpose. Also, we think all of you probably spend some time using smart devices in your various daily lives. The notification system on smart devices can update you when you receive an e-mail, when there is a news update or when the stock price of a company in the spotlight has changed significantly. So, the other key issue is how we use notification functions. As there is still some time before we will actually launch the QOL business, we will not discuss the details at this moment. What I can tell you today is that we will lower the measurement hurdle by such a great degree that users will be measured by simply sleeping. Also, we have a strong belief that we will be able to produce something interesting when we skillfully combine our video game know-how with the smart device notification functions that are already used in daily life.