January 18^th, 2002 (12:00am) - 01.17 11pm EST

Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi went on record today in Tokyo with Mainichi regarding the year ahead. Among the topics discussed include the state of the software market and possible competition from Microsoft’s Xbox and the PlayStation 2.

To begin, Yamauchi-san was asked about the state of the game software market. He responded, ’While the software market has been flooded recently, Japanese consumers won’t buy just anything, especially rehashed titles. In regard to the GameCube, we expect two titles to sell more than 1 million copies; Pikmin and Smash Brothers DX.’

As reported last year, Yamauchi-san announced plans to establish a game development fund in Japan. Thereby, Yamauchi-san will invest venture capital into budding game developers and related visionaries. The fund will be wholly supported with 20 billion yen from Yamauchi-san. When asked why he decided to create the fund, Yamauchi-san replied, ’The choices in terms of theme parks in Japan is very limited - Tokyo Disneyland or Universal Studios Japan. The same can be said about the software market - there’s a need to move beyond the traditional genres of RPG, action, fighting, etc. In today’s market venture capital isn’t being invested in technology, and banks won’t loan money either. That’s why the fund was establishd.

While Nintendo’s GameCube has been available in Japan since September, Microsoft’s is poised to release the Xbox next month. When asked his opinion on the competition, Yamauchi-san responded, ’I don’t think the Xbox will sell well in Japan. Microsoft’s conventional approach towards the console software development might be accepted in America, but Japanese players are different. As for Sony’s price drop of the PlayStation 2, I don’t think its had much affect on us.’

Why is Nintendo’s president so confident in the GameCube? Yamauchi-san answered, ’In today’s market the hardware is so high-performance the developer can pay more attention to the software. Developers want to realize their imagination in their software in the shortest development period possible, and that’s where the GameCube excels. I think that difference will become more apparent this year.

Lastly, the 74-year-old Yamauchi-san was asked the lingering question, when will he retire? In response he revealed, ’I’ve been thinking about my retirement and making plans for the past two years. I may resign sometime later this year, but nothing’s decided yet. The future of Nintendo won’t be decided by one man however, but through collective leadership.

-- Translation Asst. Tsuno Okashi