Nintendo president Satoru Iwata doesn't seem like the biggest fan of the price drop. He says:

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At a financial briefing in Japan today, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata walked investors and analysts through a series of slides, slides featuring charts, that highlight the company's success on the Nintendo DS and Wii platforms. While most of it was nap-inducing corporate gloating via PowerPoint, Iwata provided new details on upcoming WiiWare and DSi Ware titles, including new games in the Art Style line and four (mostly) new WarioWare releases.

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Nintendo wants to give you a quick update on how awesome it's doing. It's now planning on doing wicked awesome this current fiscal year, with an expected 11% increase in sales. That means instead of the 28 million Nintendo DSs and 25 million Wiis it had planned to ship by March 31 of 2009, it will ship... more. More software too! Laughs and chuckles were heard emanating from the company's Kyoto offices today.

Oh, and it'll make more money accordingly. Operating income and net income have both been projected to be much, much higher. What does that really mean?

Net income of somewhere in the ballpark of $US 3.8 billion (in U.S. bucks) for the year, according to Bloomberg, news that gave Nintendo's stock price a positive kick in the pants. The Bloomberg report does not mention, however, exactly when Nintendo expects to give up its efforts and go third party and put guns on cars like they probably should. You're just prolonging the inevitable, Iwata!

Nintendo Raises Forecasts on Wii, DS; Shares Surge [Bloomberg]

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Nintendo head Satoru Iwata says that while there will indeed be games that hit the Wii in the future that require the upcoming Wii Motion Plus accessory, Nintendo hopes to make the add-on as inexpensive as possible.

There will be games that will be enhanced by the Wii Motion Plus as well as games that can only be played with it. Users will need four if they have four controllers, but we're going to try to offer it for as little as possible. We haven't announced the price yet, but the cost of making the Wii Motion Plus is not that much, so I think we can make it very affordable.

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For all the talk of Nintendo's "dominance", it's a relative thing. They're dominating videogame sales amongst a small percentage of the world's population. Namely, the developed world. North America, Western Europe, NE Asia, Australasia, etc. And a few other places. But why stop there? There are over 6 billion people on this planet, so Nintendo may as well go take everyone's money, rich or poor. Boss Satoru Iwata:

After we complete our mission in developed countries, then we'll have to start thinking about how to make our products appealing in developing countries. We'll have a whole new dimension of issues to tackle like pricing, quantity availability and regional adaptation. We're not going to meet our goals that easily.

In other words, take over the world. Satoru Iwata: part-time Nintendo president, full-time Bond villain.

Keeping Up Nintendo's Momentum [WSJ]

Sure, everything's rosy over at Nintendo HQ these days, but for a while there, things weren't looking so hot. Any gaming pundit could have told you that. But what were Nintendo thinking during those dark, dark days? They were worried. Especially boss Satoru Iwata, who aside from fearing the company "would die a slow death" if they didn't escape a shrinking market, was also worried about his own job prospects, telling Spiegel:

I was lucky everything worked so quickly. For the longest time I wasn't sure what would happen first: that we'd see success with the new console, or that I'd be fired.

Satoru, someone with your qualifications would have no trouble finding a top-flight job in either the food service or housekeeping industries.

"Wir verstehen, dass die Leute enttäuscht sind" [Spiegel, via CVG]

Of all the lowlights of last week's E3 "festivities", none were lower than Nintendo's press conference. A fact I'm sure, by now, they're acutely aware of. And in response to the, uh, less than warm reception to their offerings, Nintendo President Satoru iwata is sorry.

If there is any perception that Nintendo is ignoring the core gamers, it's a misunderstanding and we really want to get rid of that misunderstanding by any means. We are sorry about [the E3] media briefings, specifically for those who were expecting to see Nintendo show something about 'Super Mario' or 'Legend of Zelda.'

"Sorry" is a strong, and surprisingly powerful word to pull out. Probably won't do anything to sooth the strained neck veins of the outraged faithful, but it's a nice gesture regardless.

A Wii Bit Short On Supplies [Forbes]

Even Nintendo president Satoru Iwata doesn't think friend codes are prefect. Heck, hear him say it:

First of all, I don't think the current system we have with friend codes is perfect. However, if it's an online world where you can get access to anybody without any restrictions, I as a father do not feel like allowing my daughter be engaged in that kind of world. So for Nintendo, especially in terms of the people who have never experienced online video games before, we think that it's still very important to create a world where we can assure that there will be no harassment for these online beginners, and we really want to assure the security and safety for them to do that. So we will be studying this on an ongoing basis in order to improve Nintendo's own circumstances where people can freely and safely enjoy the communications through the net.

Quick show of hands. Who likes friend codes? Okay, who tolerates them? And, who hates them? Nintendo is doing its best to make sure that its online service is friendly to all players, and the company should be commended for that. (Think of the children!)

Interview: Satoru Iwata Talks [GameDaily via CVG]

Tomorrow, Nintendo will kick off its E3 press conference. What to expect? Nintendo brass standing on stage, talking about stuff. What stuff? Dunno! What we do know is that Nintendo has confirmed Nintendo Co. Ltd. president Satoru Iwata, Nintendo Senior Managing Director Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America executive vice president for sales and marketing Cammie Dunaway and Nintendo of America vice president of marketing and corporate affairs Denise Kaigler will be on stage this Tuesday morning — not necessarily in that order. Whew, some of those folks have long job titles!

Nintendo confirms E3 speakers [CVG] [Pic]

While it's never been given an official, bells-and-whistles announcement by the company, they've made it clear enough in the past that Nintendo will some day release a Wii that's capable of playing DVDs. It was meant to be in 2007, but that obviously didn't happen. Our advice is not to expect one in 2008, either, as Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said "With supply constraints [of the Wii] continuing worldwide, the priority is on the current model". The 0.3% of the population with a Wii but without a DVD player must surely be distraught.

Nintendo Holds off on Wii DVD [IGN]