Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa Discusses Expanding Into Regions Where Switch Isn’t Available Yet

During Nintendo’s latest investor Q&A, the company’s president Shuntaro Furukawa answered questions related to overseas expansion, specifically into regions where the Switch isn’t readily available.

More specifically, the questions were about whether Nintendo was considering expanding into regions where the Super Mario Bros. Movie was shown, but where the dedicated game console business did not have much presence in. In his responses, Furukawa spoke about two regions in particular: South America and Southeast Asia, highlighting how hardware sales in Mexico have increased significantly, and their initiatives in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore are doing.

You can check out the questions and responses below, translated by Nintendosoup:

Q: It’s said that the Super Mario Bros. Movie was shown and watched by many people in regions where the dedicated game console business does not have a presence in. I would like to ask if the company is thinking to expand the dedicated game console business to regions where the Nintendo Switch isn’t offered yet based on where the movie succeeded in.

Furukawa: There is a vast difference between the regions where the movie was shown and the countries and regions where Nintendo Switch is being sold. Among them, South America, and in particular, Mexico, where the movie was shown, we have conducted promotions that are beyond what we have done in the past in the holiday season. As a result, even though hardware sales are declining as a whole, sales in Mexico have increased. Also, the Southeast Asian market is expanding, and we are taking initatives to reach and have more customers know about Nintendo. In these regions, first, we want to make connections with our customers through Nintendo Switch, and make use of that foundation for our future businesses.

Q: I would like to dig a little deeper into how you are planning to increase the sales in the “Other” region by using the movie. I think there are various bottlenecks to expanding sales in the “Other” region, but I would like to know what kind of issues are there and if there are possibilites to radically solving them. The pricing of hardware is something that is a particular issue.

Furukawa: The pricing of hardware is one of the issues to expanding the business in the “Other” region, and while we weren’t able to find a start to expanding our dedicated game console business up till now, we were able to do so through the movie, which increased the opportunities of exposing people to our IP. Outside of dedicated game consoles, we are using our mobile apps and other methods to reach customers in such regions. Last year, we expanded pop-up stores of our official stores in Japan to South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc, and there was an extremey high number of customers that visited and purchased products. Also, concerning theme parks, besides Universal Studios Japan and Universal Studios Hollywood, Super Nintendo World is planned to open in Orlando and Singapore. Even in regions where the pricing of hardware is an issue, we are using IP as a step to make customers familiar with the Nintendo brand, and finally have them play games on our dedicated game consoles. We will continue such measures in the future.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.