"The fact of the matter is that we’ve been here constantly. We’ve been betraying people’s expectations, in a good way, for a long time."

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Satoru Iwata's confidence, both in his company's strategy and products, is inescapable. I walked into my meeting with Nintendo's global president with a list of questions asking about Nintendo's past mistakes and options for the future. And while I did ask those questions, I left with a better understanding of what Iwata hoped to accomplish, and why he is still confident that the oldest company in the games industry can turn its fortunes around. Iwata speaks with an unwavering, yet friendly and optimistic, conviction. He's realistic about Nintendo's struggles and weaknesses, while still describing all past choices within a framework of a company that time and time again has defied the odds and overcome hurdles that might spell the doom of any other company."Have you heard of the theory or the story of the four-minute mile?" Iwata asked me, leaning forward with a fixed, unwavering yet not unfriendly gaze.That's not a question I expected to hear during an interview with Nintendo's president, but it certainly fit the tone of our discussion to that point. Iwata doesn't give brief answers to direct questions, mostly because he wants to make sure you completely understand the background and context for his beliefs. Sometimes the simplest ideas are formed from very complicated histories. Iwata wants Nintendo to be understood on a fundamental level. He wants you to intuitively grasp the publisher's strategies for the future."For a very long time in the past, it was believed to be impossible that a human could run a mile in four minutes," Iwata told me. "However, once one person broke the record, 23 more people broke the record themselves in the following year. Many things we can’t do are simply because we think we can’t do them." I replied "So basically the impossible is possible?" Iwata, who understands English intuitively and rarely needs a translator for my questions, smiles and nods firmly. "Yes," he replies.The meaning of Iwata's story stands clear, which he quickly ties to the company he has guided for over a decade. Nintendo is constantly doubted, and constantly questioned, mostly because it routinely challenges the direction of the industry and the conventional wisdom that comes with it. "To put it another way, if we start thinking we can do something, we can do it," Iwata said.Of course, Iwata isn't alone in this belief. As the Chief Operating Officer and president of Nintendo of America, Reggie Fils-Aime plays an incredibly important role in Nintendo's global business, and reports directly to Iwata, who recently became the CEO of NOA. Talking to Fils-Aime is completely different than interviewing Iwata. Perhaps due to the fact that we've chatted many, many times over the past several years, Reggie is far more relaxed and a bit less formal when we sit down to talk about Nintendo's strengths and weaknesses since the last time we spoke, several months prior to the launch of Wii U. Much has changed since that time.As it happens, though not to my surprise, Fils-Aime has his own anecdote to counter the latest wave of skepticism to cross Nintendo. I can tell he has been expecting this. He's ready - as always, and as the popular Nintendo-related meme goes."I saw a video clip from 1990 or 1991. It was a clip off of Good Morning America," Fils-Aime told me in a separate interview (you can see the clip below). "It was just before the transition here in the Americas from NES to SNES. The broad themes were, “Is Nintendo dead? Can they make the transition to the next system with other devices getting stronger?” They were talking about PCs. “Is the dedicated gaming system dead?” 1990 or 1991. This industry has been declared dead so many times. Nintendo has been declared dead so many times. It’s just noise."Certainly seeing cries of doom and gloom from 20 years ago reinforces what Iwata and Fils-Aime are saying. Nintendo understands its games, its hardware and its potential customers better than outsiders. Wii U's momentum has certainly slowed to a crawl, but looking over at the Nintendo 3DS, which could be argued is the most consistently entertaining platform in 2013, shows that quality games can change everything."Fundamentally, this is the entertainment business," Fils-Aime said. "If we entertain people, if we put smiles on their faces, they’re going to buy our products – hardware and software. They’re going to support our brands. We will continue to be a very effective and a very, dare I say, successful company. It’s about the content."