Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata hasn't had the easiest time running Nintendo lately, with continuing sluggish sales of the Wii U leading to the company having to continually adjust its sales projections even lower, and people from all sides clamoring for him to do something involving smartphones as the company's savior.
Now, in an extended interview with Japan's Nikkei business newspaper, Iwata has gone further than his recent comments relating to the company's new push for customer sales by stating that the company is open to acquiring more companies to bring into its fold or even merging with another company as a part of a larger response on the short-term plan to revitalize the company's fortunes in emerging and new markets.
We'll change the way we sell products, by managing customer information via the Internet. We'll offer discounts to steady, regular customers. We'll cultivate emerging markets and launch new businesses in health and other areas. In an emerging country, you can expand the user base only after you offer a product line different from advanced economies in pricing.We should abandon old assumptions about our businesses. We are considering M&As as an option. For this reason, we'll step up share buybacks.
Iwata also cited the company's status as a publicly traded company being an obstacle to performing well, as the CEO admitted that Nintendo hasn't been the best at sales forecasting over its modern history or quarterly earnings reports being a good fit for the company's style of product development and sales.
Quarterly earnings reporting is not a good fit for Nintendo. We don't know in advance how much of a hit a product can be. Even when we make plans thinking that a goal is reachable, sometimes things don't go well and this ends up upsetting (shareholders). But it is thanks to the stock market that Nintendo has grown to what it is today. I don't want to turn to a management buyout just because we are inconvenienced now.
So what do you think? Who could Nintendo buy or merge with in order to better perform against the current market shift to smartphone gaming and Android/iOS? Does its plan for emerging and new markets make sense or is it still focusing on things outside of its core problems?
via Yahoo Plugged In
Image: AP Photo/Koji Sasahara
Humberto Saabedra is the Owner of AnimeNews.biz, Editor-in-Chief of PhoneNews.com and a part-time recording engineer. He can also be found musing on things (and Nico Robin) at @AnimeNewsdotbiz
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