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Nintendo Head Takes 50% Pay Cut, Outlines Smart Device Strategy

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata held a meeting to discuss the company's corporate management policy and third quarter fiscal plans on Thursday.

Iwata previously told reporters that he will take a 50 percent pay cut from February to June and that members of Nintendo's board will also take pay cuts. Representative directors Shigeru Miyamoto and Genyo Takeda will take 30 percent cuts while other board members will take 20 percent cuts.

Iwata laid out Nintendo's plans in light of the recent drops in fiscal projections for the quarter. The company does not intend to abandon console development and will further implement Nintendo Network IDs to increase longevity of its software as new Nintendo consoles are released.

Nintendo will also release a service within the year to connect to consumers via smart devices. Miyamoto added, "We will use a small, select team of developers to achieve it." Financial news source Nikkei had reported that Nintendo plans to use mobile devices for demos and free short games to raise awareness of its console properties. Miyamoto described the extent of the smart device initiative:

Accordingly, I have not given any restrictions to the development team, even not ruling out the possibility of making games or using our game characters. However, if you report that we will release Mario on smart devices, it would be a completely misleading statement. It is our intention to release some application on smart devices this year that is capable of attracting consumer attention and communicating the value of our entertainment offerings, so I would encourage you to see how our approach yields results.

Miyamoto announced that Mario Kart 8 will be released on Wii U globally in May. Nintendo also plans to expand its character licensing business and enter into "areas we did not license until now."

The company also laid out plans to utilize the under-performing Wii U console. Iwata noted that a sizeable amount of customers believe that the Wii U GamePad is an accessory for the Nintendo Wii console and this result is due to lack of effort on Nintendo's part. The company will focus on releasing software titles that fully utilize the GamePad and its near-field communication (NFC) abilities. Nintendo will also improve the system with an update this summer that will address the 20-second loading time. Nintendo will also release a Nintendo DS virtual console for the Wii U.

The company's Nintendo 3DS was noted as a success with 4.9 million consoles sold in Japan and 11.5 million sold in the U.S. in the 2013 calendar year. 42.74 million have been sold worldwide since its launch.

Source: Nikkei via Siliconera