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Wall Street Journal - Miyamoto needs more ideas, more accessories may come, Microsoft has a lot of money, and MotionPlus will be cheap
A portion of a Wall Street Journal interview with Satoru Iwata…
WSJ: You finally unveiled Wii Music, the game that Super Mario Brothers creator Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated three years ago.
Mr. Iwata: Wii Music completes what Miyamoto wrote in his proposal when he came up with the idea for the Wii. He was saying that he needs to think up more ideas now.
WSJ: Since you first launched Wii, you’ve introduced several accessories, such as the steering wheel to play racing games and the gun-like Wii Zapper to shoot targets in a game. This month you unveiled the Wii Motion Plus and Wii Speak. Are there any more accessories in the pipeline?
Mr. Iwata: Most of the ideas for accessories that we had initially come up with are out now. We might think up some more, and we might make them if we do, but we don’t have any plans to release a whole lot more.
WSJ: Sony and Microsoft’s video-downloading services on the PS3 and Xbox 360, respectively, are both aimed in part at winning customers beyond core game players. But Nintendo has already captured the audience it wants with simple, intuitive games. Have you thought of offering a video-downloading service, too?
Mr. Iwata: If we can do something different that plays up our strengths — and broadens what a videogame constitutes — then we might do it. If we have no ideas, we’re not going to compete with the exact same services against companies like Sony, which has a movie studio, and Microsoft, which has a lot of money.