Nintendo’s president said yesterday that anti-piracy measures would be beefed up in its planned handheld game device with 3D technology in a move to guard against software theft.
Nintendo Co president Satoru Iwata was otherwise tight-lipped about the machine, which the Japanese game maker said in March would be shown at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles next month.
It’s set to go on sale sometime in the fiscal year through March next year, according to the Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games.
The problem of piracy is serious, especially in Asia and Europe, and contributed to the recent drop in game software sales in Europe, Iwata said at a Tokyo hotel.
He declined to go into details on the planned measures, saying such comments would merely give “hints” to the culprits.
Iwata was also concerned people were becoming more tolerant of piracy.
“We fear a kind of thinking is becoming widespread that paying for software is meaningless,” he said. “We have a strong sense of crisis about this problem.”
Nintendo is banking on a new DS-type handheld with 3D capabilities that doesn’t require special glasses to spur new growth in the gaming industry. But analysts are withholding judgment because no one has yet seen the machine.
Iwata acknowledged people were already worried about the possible health effects of 3D gaming, such as on children’s eyesight.
He promised it would be easy to turn off the 3D function on the new machine, allowing people to play games with or without 3D.
Nintendo’s earnings dropped for the fiscal year ended March 31, battered by a price cut for the Wii home console and sliding global sales despite some signs of recovery in year-end sales, sending Nintendo stock tumbling 9 percent to close at ¥27,800 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
It is forecasting sales to fall 2.4 percent and profit to slide 12.5 percent for the fiscal year through March next year.
The company expects to sell 18 million Wii machines during the year following sales of 20 million for the previous year.
Iwata noted Japanese media reports on Wii sales losing momentum following the earnings report on Thursday, but stressed that 20 million and 18 million were both good numbers and a “high hurdle” as a sales record to beat.
“I’m not pessimistic, and this is not a pessimistic forecast,” he said.
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