'Nintendo is not interested' in Facebook, mobile games, president says

Nintendo Satoru Iwata
Whelp, there goes our dream of a Pokemon game on Facebook. In a lengthy interview with All Things Digital, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company is simply not interested in joining the social or mobile games space. Iwata alluded to the company's disinterest during its GDC 2011 keynote address, but he has effectively buried any possibility of Nintendo entering either market entirely. His argument? Maintaining the perceived value of software.

    My point is about how we can keep the public's perception of the software. If we are going to destroy the value of the game software - once we have done so, it's a difficult job to recover from that situation. Yes, it is true. There are great examples of advertising and doing the micro-transactions, and several companies who have come up with that kind of system. But on the other hand, if you ask me, is this the system that can be sustained for the long time? I don't know the answer. And, my point is that I'm not willing to go that direction, as well.

Nintendo's focus has always been focused on selling hardware and games that play to the strengths of it. But increasing pressure from Facebook and mobile megaliths like Zynga and EA has caused the company to vocalize its confidence in its current strategy and denounce the allure of social and smartphone gaming. However, Iwata realizes that Nintendo's competitors are willing (and already have gone) to go in that direction, and that it must create new business models to adapt. The question is, however, how does one compete with "free?"