14 DAY TRIAL // A recent Nintendo investor Question and Answer session has revealed a bit from the company's philosophy regarding its idea of competition. According to the president of the Japanese gaming giant, Satoru Iwata, Nintendo sees as a rival anything that could take people's attention from Nintendo products. There is no one rival that Nintendo needs to defeat, as this would lead the outfit on a dangerous road, away from the consumer's desires.
In the Q&A session, he answered a shareholder asking about Nintendo's approach regarding its rivals that, “we ourselves, assume that our rival is everything consuming people's interest, time and energy. If we were to consider one specific thing as our rival, we would do nothing but think of how to beat it. Thinking this way could allow us to fall into the trap of shortsighted business philosophies, saying, ‘how do we spoil the rival's strength,’ or ‘how do we do what the rival cannot do.’”
He continued to comment that Nintendo did not manufacture products of daily necessity and that there weren't simple and clear ways to get customers to buy the kind of offerings that come from his company. Instead of focusing on ways to beat a rival, it is better to focus on ways to find out the answers to questions like “‘What does it mean to make people interested in something?’, ‘What is worth spending people's time and energy on?’, or ‘What do people find amusement in?’ We would be glad if you understand that, as the basis, we are not conscious of any certain rivals.”
Iwata also stated that he didn't believe cloud computing would be as popular as many people thought it would. He motivated this stance saying that despite many of its advantages and flexibility, any kind of delay in response after the press of a button would only annoy the customers. Nintendo will not shy away from implementing cloud computing in its services, but always taking into account the technology's obvious limitations.