Nintendo President Satoru Iwata addressed Nintendo’s financial outlook and plans for current and future hardware in a Q&A session during the company’s Fiscal Year 2014 Financial Results Briefing.
Responding to an inquiry of how Nintendo will use software to promote hardware, Iwata explained that the company’s “very popular, evergreen franchises that have been under development since before the launch of Wii U hardware, [specifically] ‘Mario Kart 8’ and ‘Super Smash Bros. for Wii U,’” will be its two key releases for the new fiscal year, calling them “the pillars of our entire marketing strategy.”
“Also, our internal software development teams directed by Shigeru Miyamoto (Senior Managing Director and General Manager of Entertainment Analysis & Development Division) are committed to developing several titles that focus on offering unique experiences only made possible with the Wii U GamePad in order for a large number of people to understand the Wii U GamePad’s significance,” he added.
“The titles we are preparing [to show] at E3 vary from being nearly complete to still in the early phases of development but with the core of its appeal noticeable.”
Even in the wake of the Wii U’s radical downturn and slowing 3DS sales, Iwata is confident that the coming years will be positive for the company, though perhaps not radically profitable.
“Instead of seeing a great and sudden recovering in our profitability in the next fiscal year," he said, “I am rather expecting to be able to report Nintendo-like profits from around the following fiscal year.”
Those Nintendo-like profits stem from the idea that introducing flagship titles like Mario Kart 8—which will be playable at GameStop promotions this weekend—will spur interest in Nintendo hardware, coupled with modest sales estimations, Iwata explained, as well as movement into new markets such as the Chinese economic zone.
