We believe that either our own teams or teams that we direct are best capable of creating 'Mario' games that will live up to the franchise. The same is true for 'Metroid' and 'Zelda' and all those wonderful properties. For us, we want to control those characters as a key corporate equity.
The reality is, the way that online experiences have progressed, it's an expensive proposition. The amount of servers we need to support 'Smash Brothers' or 'Mario Kart' - these big multiplayer games - is not a small investment.
'Super Mario Maker' clearly is going to drive hardware. There are consumers who have always wanted to make their levels of Mario games. So that game will really speak to those consumers.
Nintendo looks at every technology. Often times, we look at technology before it really is considered mass-market ready. The original DS had touch screen on a device. First time that a mass market product had touch screen built in.
The fact is, there's no single magic number that defines profitability for a game.
The consumer likes having a brand-new experience and reliving it over and over again. If you create the right type of experience, that also happens in video games.
We do think deeply about the sequencing of our games, but having said that, Nintendo is well-known that if a game isn't ready, we will push out the development in order to make sure that it is as strong as possible when the game launches.
I get asked constantly, what's Nintendo's approach to the esports community. And our approach is we want to enable consistent standards. We want to enable an approach to the competition that's fair, that's balanced, that enables the players to showcase their skills.
The Wii U is not a tablet. It's a two-screen experience. And so you have this unique GamePad that gives you a different way to have a gaming experience.
I was accepted into Cornell in 1979 and went there to follow a finance and business path. I ended up pursuing marketing and sales because I was selected by Procter & Gamble as an undergraduate candidate to go into its brand management program, which is typically available only to M.B.A. candidates.
We don't believe used games are in the best interest of the consumer. We have products that consumers want to hold onto. They want to play all of the levels of a 'Zelda' game and unlock all of the levels.
