14 DAY TRIAL // Satoru Iwata, who is the president of Nintendo was present at the Game Developers Conference and said that the rise of social powered games experiences and of titles based on smartphones is challenging the very nature of video gaming and threatens the entire industry.
Iwata has said, “I feel our business is dividing in a way that will endanger employment for many of us working. Yes, developer's hours are too long and the stress too high, but until now there's always been the ability to make a living. Will that still be the case moving forward?”
Lately, games delivered on the Apple-powered iPhone and on the various Android phones have been significantly cheaper than those that are being launched on mobile handhelds, like the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable, and even more so than those that arrive on the PC and on home consoles.
The Nintendo president highlighted a study which says that 92 percent of the most popular content for mobile phones is free, adding, “Yes, pretty much every game is cheaper to develop, but what revenue will they engender?”
Still, the veteran game developer believes that the industry has the resources, both material and human, required to innovate and create titles that will keep gamers interested in more traditional devices.
He cited Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario and Zelda and long time Nintendo creative power, as teaching him that the quality of content will always win out and attract the biggest amount of players.
At the moment, Nintendo is in the process of launching the 3DS handheld, which can deliver three-dimensional gaming experiences without the use of glasses.
In the first two days it was available in Japan, the device managed to sell all the launch units, more than 400,000 of them.
It's not clear how the sales in Japan might impact launch availability in North America and Europe later in March.