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Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has described the company’s falling share price following the announcement of their Wii successor as very strange.”
Honestly speaking, the reaction to [Tuesday’s] presentation and what I heard from people I met and the mood of the convention did not chime at all with what happened in the stock market,” he said in an interview with Reuters at E3 on Wednesday.
Following its unveiling of the Wii U on Tuesday, the company’s share price has fallen nearly 10 per cent in three days, the lowest it has been in five years.
The new console features a tablet-style controller and HD graphics, and Nintendo hopes it will win over both core and casual players with its touch and motion games.
Iwata recalled the mixed reaction to the original Wii in 2006 and said that it showed that those who had not experienced the new system did not fully understand its potential.
In the end, it is easy to get the mistaken impression that this is just a game console with a tablet,” he said.
People who came to the presentation and tried it out have understood very well that it opens up a lot of new possibilities. But people who have not tried it will find it hard to believe that this controller will change things.”
In the year following the launch of the Wii in November 2006, shares in Nintendo tripled but have since slowed.
Speaking the Evening Standard, Iwata said Nintendo was not clear enough with the unveiling of its new hardware.
