Nintendo President Satoru Iwata discusses his thoughts on handheld gaming. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata discussed Nintendo's competition with smartphones as well as his beliefs on handheld experiences in an interview with Kotaku last week. While examining the success of smartphone gaming, Iwata explained that there was a market for both their devices and smartphones. Nintendo has always had competition, whether it be Sony or Microsoft, now they just have new competition that must be considered. "I'm not saying there aren't people out there who aren't going to purchase a dedicated handheld device based on the availability and the fun factor in their smartphones," Iwata said. "I do want to say that there are still people buying our devices and that is also factual. I don't think there's not a bright future for handheld devices but I understand that the competition, again with the rise of smart devices is different, and I do recognize that. Nintendo is past just focusing on competing with Sony and Microsoft, Iwata detailed. The changing environment means they have to compete with smartphones for a degree, even giving crediting to some of the better, deeper smartphone games. Even still, he stands by the fact that "One way we can ensure that there's a market for handheld gaming devices is by continuing to bring out entertaining and engaging software that will provide users experiences that they cannot get on these other devices." Iwata further explained that there were two different kinds of needs consumers look to fill: "time-filler" needs or a rich experience. It was implied that Nintendo offers the latter of the two. "I think that consumers who are willing to pay money for a gaming experience are looking for something that is more rich and are willing to spend some of that valuable time on that experience," he said. "I don't think we're going to see the desire to have, again, rich and deep sort of gaming experiences... we're not going to see that vanish. That's not going to go away."
