The appointment of Iwata in 2002 as a new president for Nintendo marked the dawn of a new
era. The new president was to bring new and innovative changes to the company using his years of
experience and market knowledgeability (Farhoomand et al., 2009, p. 2). Iwata’s strategy was to
grow the gaming market to include the non-gamers. In order to accomplish this, he mandated the
need for simple games that were enjoyable for all customers (i.e., a fun-for-all game). From the
basis of this strategy, spawned Nintendo’s DS and Wii gaming systems (Farhoomand et al., 2009,
p. 4).
As a means to test his strategy, Iwata and his company, developed the Nintendo DS handheld
gaming device to expand the video gaming industry beyond the television.
Nintendo was not
entirely new to the handheld device market. They had previously introduced the Game Boy in
1989, Super Game Boy in 1994, and the Game Boy Colour in 1998. For the DS, it included many
6
innovative features such as a touch-screen that allowed gamers to manipulate in-game actions
using a stylus pen. In addition, Nintendo introduced Wi-Fi capabilities in subsequent versions of
the DS. This allowed users to play competitively or cooperatively together over an existing Wi-Fi
network. With the release of the DS Lite, Nintendo continued to maintain its 90% market share in
the handheld video gaming industry through sustained innovation (Farhoomand et al., 2009, p. 5).
In early 2005, Sony introduced its PlayStation Portable (PSP) as a direct competitor to Nintendo’s
DS device (Farhoomand et al., 2009, p. 14).
The Nintendo DS not only introduced innovative concepts such as the the touch-screen and Wi-
Fi capabilities, but it also had many creative gaming titles. Successful games included
Nintendogs
,
Dragon Quest V
,
Guitar Hero: On Tour
, and
Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon 2
(Farhoomand et al.,
2009, p. 21). In July 2008, three of these games were amongst the top ten most popular games in
the world (Farhoomand et al., 2009, p. 21).
Building on the successes of the Nintendo DS, and with a focus on capturing non-gamers,
Nintendo developed the Wii in hopes of recapturing some of its market share in the fixed console
market. The Wii was released in 2006, similar to the rollout dates for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and
Sony’s PS3. Nintendo’s newest console had a compact design that relied on the use of an easy-to-
use wand-like controller. The controller was innovative in its simplicity, but also in its ability to
translate the movements of the wand into in-game action through the use of built-in motion sensors.
The Wii also provided the ability for users to connect to the Internet to access the latest news or
weather conditions in their region. An open connection to the world also allowed Nintendo to sell
some of its classic games that were originally released for the Super NES and N64 systems. These
games were available for direct download (Farhoomand et al., 2009, p. 5).
