At Nintendo’s recent Q3 financial results conference, company president Satoru Iwata shot down the idea of realeasing a new console every four to five years, as is the current trend in the industry. His reasoning for this is that new hardware should be released when the market is ready for a change, not when a hardware manufacturer reaches a pre-set deadline.
"I’m quite doubtful that such a notion of platform cycles can be applied in the future…As we continue our research and study for new hardware, when we will be able to launch a new kind of hardware will actually depend on when we can change entertainment completely, and so have a strong impact on people around the world. Or, there will certainly be a time when we have to say that we have done everything possible with the current machine, that we can never propose anything new."
In an analogy that could only be more appropriate if he used the word equips, he continued:
"We long for a new weapon whenever we cry that we cannot fight anymore with the current weapons. But today’s situation is such that we are not desperate for any new weapons at all."
He also went on to describe the behind-the-scenes hardware development process in minor detail:
"We are always preparing for new hardware so that we can launch whenever we determine we should do so. However, scheduling for a rather fixed launch date 4 years from today, regardless of future changes in the industry and the market, appears to be too inflexible an approach to us.
We are always studying and working on what the new hardware must become in the future, but we are also monitoring changes in circumstances in order to act flexibly. Also, since Nintendo’s hardware engineers and software creators are always communicating closely, only when both teams agree that it is time to challenge the market with new hardware that we will launch it."
Finally, Mr. Iwata threw in a quick denial of a DS successor, saying that the company has no shortage of ideas for the current hardware (that and they have been PRINTING money with it, of course). I guess the Wii/DS combo is going to be around for quite some time, then.
