Nintendo: We're changing direction for 2008

Wednesday 23rd January 2008 - 17:00

Iwata vows to 'keep games interesting' and Alone in the Dark Xbox 360 screens

A New Year deserves a mission statement from the top brass and they don't come much more important than Mr. Satoru Iwata, the President of Nintendo. In an interview with Japanese gaming site Yukan Fuji he was keen to outline the Nintendo strategy in 2008 combined with quashing the persistent rumor of a stock shortage conspiracy.

In the first part of the translated interview he was keen to paint a picture of the Nintendo vision for the year ahead. "Our goal is to show our 'answer' to how to make sure the game population that has increased through the Wii and DS doesn't end as a short-lived boom. Even with the DS, there are still things left to do," he said.

"Things grow bad the moment they're left in the same position. In particular, people can grow tired of entertainment such as games, so in order to make sure the consumers who took up the DS and Wii don't lose interest, new ideas like Wii Fit will become essential from here on out. This year, we'll try a number of things to keep the game population expansion continuing."

What these things are remain to be seen, but if the Nintendo boffins have more gaming brainwaves to rival Wii Fit up their white coat sleeves then we can't wait to find out more. Wii Fit still hasn't received a European release but we understand it has totally sold out in Japan.

On the subject of selling-out, Iwata was keen to put a halt to scurrilous Internet gossip that suggested Nintendo purposefully calculated to reduce stock in order to generate headlines.

"To say 'we expected it to sell' would be vain," he commented. "If we had known the Wii and DS would expand so dramatically in such a short time, we wouldn't have had shortages, nor would we have had to raise our financial forecasts. When I see those types of articles, I honestly feel sad."

Although we're sure Mr. Iwata doesn't feel sad when he looks at the amazing sales figures that the Wii and DS have enjoyed across the world in 2007. We can only imagine that with more killer titles in the pipeline the same is set to happen in 2008!

Finally, take a peek from behind the sofa at a scary new selection of Alone in the Dark screens, forthcoming on the Xbox 360. The horror adventure game is set to be published by Atari in May.