Following the news that both of Nintendo's major hardware lines failed to meet expectations, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced that the company is "thinking about a new business structure."
During a press conference today in Osaka, Iwata went so far as to say that the Nintendo is looking at smart devices as a means to grow. "Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business," he explained. "It's not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone."
For the longest time Nintendo has been resistant to the smartphone and tablet market, but given the current state of Wii U and the underperformance of 3DS despite its impressive sales, perhaps the company is finally starting to look outside the box.
"We cannot continue a business without winning," the Nintendo exec went on to add. "We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each."
How do you think Nintendo should go about changing its business model? Whatever they're doing right now clearly isn't working. At least Iwata recognizes that.
