Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata shared his views on the effects piracy is having on Nintendo’s business during an extensive Q&A session.
“I do not think we should attribute bad software sales solely to piracy. Even with piracy, as long as we can create products which can attract attention from many consumers and which can greatly entertain them, that software can make it to the No. 1 position of the hit software sales chart,” said Iwata.
“It is true there is always the influence of piracy, but it is important for us to increase the number of our consumers who are willing to shell out their money to purchase our products. So, we do not intend to think that slower sales are solely due to piracy,” he continued.
Iwata cited Spain as an example – a country in which it is extremely difficult under current law to tackle piracy. Despite flagging Nintendo DS software title sales in Spain, Nintendo scored a hit with Art Academy, which was the number one selling title in Spain, across all platforms. Iwata said that this proves that when software is popular enough, it can sell well regardless of piracy.
As part of their defense against piracy, Iwata talked about Nintendo’s implementation of SpotPass – a system that will allow the new Nintendo 3DS to download data while in sleep mode. This data can include updates, free software, and much more.
“As one of the functions of SpotPass, we are considering to automatically update the hardware through the network. Countermeasures against piracy are not the only purpose, of course,” said Iwata. He also said that Nintendo plans to carefully monitor the implementation of the SpotPass system, so it doesn’t become a platform for spam.
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