Furukawa: “Games Are Not Life-Essential Products”

In part one of our translation of the Nikkei interview with Nintendo Co., Ltd. President Shuntaro Furukawa, he discusses new technology such as AR, the harshness of the game and entertainment business and the sense of danger he has from games not being “life-essential” products, and can games continue to innovate. Thanks to BlackKite for the translation. Please credit Japanese Nintendo and link to this post if using any part of this translation elsewhere. Look out for future parts shortly.

Nikkei: Cutting-edge technologies keep getting implemented through games, such as 5G and AR.

Furukawa: New technologies are getting adopted first in games in this world. After many years and months, people who played video games [grow up] from children to parents. It’s the result of how gaming – which was only done by children in the past – has expanded to a broader generation.”

Pokémon GO uses AR; it produces a social phenomenon where men and women, young and old sally forth around towns in order to collect characters that appear here and there. Games that give many people experiences [that make them say] ‘I did this for the first time, but this is so interesting’ have the power to change even people’s behaviours.

Nikkei: A competition that transcends the frame of contents such as video and music is beginning.

Furukawa: It’s not something that has begun just now. Games are not life-essential products, so it wouldn’t be strange for customers to leave them someday; that’s what I had always been told about ever since I joined this company. I always have that sense of danger and feel like it’s the fate of game and entertainment businesses. In that meaning, it’s a very harsh business.

There’s a flood of methods to play, and the time-stealing competition revolving around consumers’ limited [available/free] time is getting fiercer. Games are dealing with that competition while having to continue producing innovations from hereafter.

Nikkei: Can games continue to stay as cradles that produce innovations?

Furukawa: Innovation is making something – that many people thought impossible with common sense – possible. It’s important to always ask ourselves ‘Is there something else impossible that we can make possible?’ When things that we thought ‘This gameplay is technologically impossible’ become possible with some sort of idea, we are able to surprise people.

There will be even more initiatives that transcend the frame of games that everyone has been imagining. Games that contribute to healthcare by moving bodies just like the Wii and games that can actually be used to train memory power are also born. It’s the result after having probed what we could do to match subjects – that are being played by many customers – with games. If we find something that’s interesting, we just step into there. If we do that, sometimes innovations can be born.

Nikkei: How do games change with technology?

Furukawa: The most important thing when a new technology appears is how the quality of users’ gaming experience changes. It’s very important for games themselves to be interesting, new, and able to give surprises. Regardless of the technological environment, those who develop games first create contents that they think consumers will want to obtain and play. After that, if there is a technology that is useful for that, they’ll adopt it.

The gaming population has a broad base. Other than that, it’s also easy to spread technologies that have been accepted by games. For example, touchscreens expanded to smartphones after it was used in the Nintendo DS.

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