After a phenomenally successful year for Nintendo in 2007, the next twelve months are (especially in terms of the Nintendo Wii) going to be critical. The man at the top, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, has been speaking to GameSpot about the achievements of the past year and his hopes for 2008. They include a desire to meet the gaming demands of everyone as well as broadening the Wii’s software library.

Iwata stated that one of Nintendo’s main goals was not only to continue to attract and satisfy the needs of newcomers to gaming, but also recognised that hardcore players continued to demand their fix:

“…Nintendo has teams working on meeting the needs of more hardcore gamers. The big complaint from them now may be that we’re not pouring all of our resources into that sector exclusively, but I feel that it’s Nintendo’s mission to make both kinds of games. Every experienced gamer today was a beginner at some point, who encountered an experience that made them fall in love with games.

I think it’s absolutely critical to keep that entryway open for new people. I think it’s really important to strike that balance between the two extremes. While it’s possible to create a game like Brain Age in an extremely short period of time with a great idea and the right people, a game like Zelda contains content that physically and inevitably demands more time to create.

As well as re-confirming plans to have the Nintendo DS used as a tool for everyday use outside of gaming, the Nintendo boss nodded towards the strong sales of Wii Fit as an example of Nintendo’s ongoing strategy to surprise and innovate in the gaming market:

If we just stand there, our customers will get bored and leave. Our survival depends upon our ability to create a situation where new people are entering, and established gamers aren’t leaving, he explained.

Talking of Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWare service (one that will supply original, downloadable gaming content similar to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE Arcade), Iwata noted that factors of time and cost were central. He said that developers have neat, little ideas for games all of the time, but not necessarily the means to develop them into fully fledged games. WiiWare will give them the opportunity to experiment, with the chance to perhaps expand on any successes in the future:

For me, the biggest reason for wanting to do WiiWare is to create an opportunity for new products to materialize by providing a forum where those products can be sold without having to compete in terms of size or name recognition, or be bound by inflexible prices or inventory risk.

I hope that WiiWare can act as a platform for that kind of an experience, but there are always people who suspect that WiiWare is all about cutting out the distributors. [Chuckles] I try to explain that that’s really not the case every opportunity I get.

Iwata attempted to dispel suggestions that third parties will be put off by Nintendo’s first party dominance of Wii software by citing the history of the Nintendo DS, a platform on which Nintendo is now second fiddle:

Last year saw the ratio of DS software flip to the degree that even we were thinking, “Wow, Nintendo is kind of the second banana here.” It took almost two years for the DS to get to that point, and the Wii has only been out for a year. From here on, we’ll see more titles by third-party software makers that they’ve invested all their energy in, so I believe that with time, this problem will resolve itself.

Iwata’s other main points included his desire to expand the Nintendo Wii’s software library over the coming months, hinting that a preconception of the types of games that “belong” on a Nintendo platform is something that needs to be changed:

…I’d like to increase the overall depth. Not just in one specific genre, but all across the board. If there’s anyone out there thinking, “Nintendo probably wouldn’t be open to a title like this,” I assure you, you’re mistaken. We love fun games of all kinds. [Laughs]

Nintendo’s head honcho concluded by confirming that there were no plans to take the Wii’s Mii avatars down the same MMO-esque route of Sony’s upcoming Home service for the PlayStation 3, explaining that keeping things simple and accessible was the way to attract even more people to the world of gaming.

Some interesting points discussed, then, particularly when it comes to the expansion of the Nintendo Wii’s gaming library. With so much interest in the platform, how Nintendo juggles the promotion of casual and hardcore gaming, as well as attracting those developers more inclined towards working on the Xbox 360 and PS3 will certainly be something to keep an eye on

Got any thoughts on Iwata’s musings for 2008? Let us know in the comments section below.