Nintendo is in big, big trouble. Aside from the company losing a lot of money, specifically dropping the projected sales from $8.8 billion to $5.6 billion, as reported by CinemaBlend, an army of critics and analysts have been blaming Nintendo president Satoru Iwata for his poor leadership of the company.
In fact, many of them have asked for his head in the form of a formal resignation from the electronics giant.
And now, Iwata faces the reality of smartphones crushing the world of game consoles, which is basically Nintedo's realm. The company president has reason to worry since Nintendo's games sell for around $40.00 while smartphone games can be downloaded for free, according to an article on The Wall Street Journal.
But the determined president remains with his head held high and refuses to completely conform to the trend maintained by these smart devices. For him, it's not worth jeopardizing his company's three-decade-long strategy of pairing up its games with consoles.
During a news conference, he said, "The spread of smart devices does not spell the end of game consoles. It's not that simple. The key is to figure out a way to use smartphones to make people aware of Nintendo's games, and encourage them to try out the console version of the games."
He then concluded by saying, "It doesn't mean that we should put Mario on smartphones."
Games analyst Piers Harding-Rolls agrees with Iwata's vision of encouraging people through different means. In an interview with TechRadar, Harding-Rolls says, "Connecting with consumers across smart devices is an important strategy for maintaining interest in Nintendo's own hardware."
However, Iwata may be on to something. After all, giving away his established games such as Pokemon, Zelda, and Mario could drastically affect the sales of the 3DS, which for now, is the company's golden goose.
As of last year, the 3DS handheld was the top-selling game console in the world, beating Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's Playstation 4.
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