Nintendo: We Are Not Falling Behind 'The Social Age'

Nintendo has refuted claims that it is behind the times in terms of social gaming, arguing that, as a company, it has always been about connecting people, starting from its playing card roots. As part of a Q&A session with investors, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata explained that Nintendo sees the social gaming situations differently from how the company is actually perceived. "The keyword 'social' has rapidly become very popular in these last two years and some say that Nintendo may be behind the social age," he said. "They might mean that Nintendo, uninterested in so-called social games from a business standpoint, fails to ride on the boom of social games. However, I have a totally opposite view - Nintendo has been a company attaching a high value to human relationships for a long time." He continued, "We have our roots in the playthings connecting people, as the company’s original business was playing cards. Therefore, we have always been aware of the human connections created by each of our products." Iwata turned his attention to social networks, explaining, "It is true that on social networking services through the internet you can make a relationship with those to which you could not connect with before." "On the other hand, I think that there has been no best answer yet to the relationship between a real network and a virtual network." He argued that nothing current social networks provide is as enjoyable as anything Nintendo has provided before. "The big theme for us is to provide new and fascinating human relationships composed of various networks, a real network with those close to you, a virtual network with those distant from you, and networks beyond description created by your experiences of sharing the same place with someone or of visiting certain places and specifically provided by SpotPass and StreetPass," he concluded.