With Nintendo's finances struggling mightily according to the latest report, the famous game maker is seeking out new revenue streams in order to reverse its fortunes. One such plan supposedly involves the release of new, more affordable hardware aimed at emerging markets.
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Many growing countries are not wealthy enough to support the same quality products at the same price points as fully modernized nations like Japan and those in North America (and most of Europe), but there is getting to be enough capital and interest to sell some form of gaming console or smartphone technology.
It's with this in mind that Nintendo is seeking to develop new hardware aimed at these types of markets, according to Bloomberg. The news agency writes that Nintendo will create entirely new hardware for these markets, rather than remake cheaper versions of existing devices from other regions.
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"We want to make new things, with new thinking rather than a cheaper version of what we currently have," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said in Tokyo today. "The product and price balance must be made from scratch."
Simply creating a cheaper Wii U or DS system for these regions, using lower quality or less powerful parts, is not what Nintendo wants to do, nor is it likely to be the path to success. The creation of new hardware aimed directly at growing markets and developed with them in mind will theoretically be more efficient and effective.
Emerging markets are huge sources of potential revenue for technology businesses because there are large untapped populations to which they can sell products that everyone wants. There is little market penetration in countries like Brazil and China (which Iwata reportedly said Nintendo is studying given its recent console ban lift), never mind product saturation, and if a company can be one of the first in the door, it would be a huge boon for business. Nintendo his hoping to do just that, but it remains to be seen what this cheaper hardware and software will be.
