Nintendo held their annual shareholder's meeting on June 26, and before the re-election of the board there was the traditional Q&A session with shareholders. Some of the questions over the years in these sessions have been banal at best, as in the shareholder who took the time to complain about the quality of gifts in 2013. However, this year's Q&A session (transcribed and translated to English here) did provide an interesting look at Nintendo's strategy both short and long term.

The questions this year fell into a few different groups:

• The Core Product (Current and Future)
• Side Products and Merch (Mobile, product licensing)
• Matters of business (Stock issues)
• "Yep, these are our shareholders"

The Core Product

Question 3 of the Q&A doesn't mess around: "I have the impression that the launches of the two systems, Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, were consecutive failures."

The immediate aftermath of this is to ask how the NX is going to be different. Iwata doesn't give a direct answer to the question because as he has reiterated repeatedly, there won't be any details on the NX this year despite our fervent pleas. At this point, the NX is Schrödinger's System, aside from Iwata's statement that it would be delivered in a "Nintendo-like fashion" - whatever that entails.

Iwata stated that market share determines what platform gets 3rd party games, and they received many proposals for joint initiatives during E3. On the latter point, it's hard to say that is true: even the Wii, with its 900m+ in software sales (of which 40% was 1st party) can't say that it was the lead or even a major platform for most of its generation. The position of "lead console" jumped from the PlayStation 2 to the Xbox 360 and then to the PlayStation 4 (considering consoles only) since those decisions were made before the Wii became a sales juggernaut. As for E3, we're not going to see the fruit of those conversations for a long time unless Nintendo decides to pull a SMT x Fire Emblem and announce an agreement for a random crossover game to come out on the NX, though allegedly 3rd parties were "impressed" by what the NX would offer at E3.

Speaking of E3, question 6 focuses on E3 and the reaction to it. Since Iwata was preparing for the meeting, Shigeru Miyamoto spoke at length about their desire to focus on 2015 and said about the virtual reality presence "I noticed a number of dream-like demonstrations for which the schedule and format for commercialization are unknown." Miyamoto also cited conversations with media and observations of people having fun playing games in the booth. Iwata spoke afterward about the success of the Smash Bros DLC reveal and the Nintendo World Championships, while reiterating the Miyamoto point about their near term focus, and offering the point that "visitors to other booths appeared to have spent a lot of time just watching game videos".

The next question (7) tries to ask what will happen with the 3DS and Wii U after the NX releases. Iwata reiterates again that they can't give specifics about NX, lest it give "other companies the opportunity to come up with counterplans or implement the ideas that they find interesting". He also says they want to provide a surprise for consumers. Regarding existing platforms, Iwata points out that a new platform has 0 install base to start - the fact that attractive software would remedy this quickly is unmentioned - and that they are working to satisfy existing Wii U consumers with software after launch. This would be covered by 3rd parties, outside 2nd party developers (Next Level, Monster, et al) or even internal studios. Based on the Wii's history, this seems unlikely - there were three 1st party titles published in Japan in 2012, and one of them was Just Dance, for instance. The rest of the world can have gaps filled in with localizations, which would help for the 3DS but doesn't seem likely for the Wii U. We'll have to see what happens with that.

The last question of this set is #12, which asks specifically about Virtual Console sales and the possibility of making all titles available at once. Aside from the IP rights issues, the response is that it should be easy to do for 1st party, but they require a lot of manual work to ensure no new glitches are introduced and the games run smoothly. (Apparently existing glitches are fine to replicate.) Iwata's famous quote from this question is that if they used human resources on producing VC titles there would be delays in new ones, but it is not mentioned why they haven't approached companies such as M2 (who worked on GBA VC for the Wii U) or even the new Digital Eclipse, or why VC games are delayed across regions.

Side Products And Merchandise

The first question in this category is question 8, in which a shareholder asks for clarification on how Nintendo will do their mobile apps. Iwata reiterated that mobile pricing would depend on the product, but that if they choose to make one time purchases, they would not engage in a race to the bottom as they believe the product is the same regardless of delivery method. (This is also covered in question 1.) As for free-to-start games, the existing strategy of obtaining small amount of money from large groups instead of all of the money of a few people ("dolphins" as opposed to "whales") was restated again. Nintendo has already put this into practice with some of their free-to-start 3DS offerings such as Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Stretchmo and even Pokemon Rumble World. The financial success of games such as Bethesda's Fallout Shelter or Blizzard's Hearthstone point to these models being successful in the mobile space if you have the right product and market it properly. Whether or not Nintendo will be able to do this is still to be determined, obviously.

Question 11 in the Q&A asks about the possibility of partnerships with other companies to create product based on Nintendo IP. Setting aside the shareholder's love of the human characters of Pokemon, Iwata confirms that they are looking at ways to enhance the popularity of Nintendo characters overseas, and are not ruling out "images or even movies or TV programs". This seems to point to something being in the works, such as the oft-rumored Netflix or Amazon-produced Legend of Zelda TV series, but no further details were given. Nintendo is being conservative with licensing for physical goods as they feel an overstock of a particular character may hurt the brand, which anyone who has tried to order certain Amiibo as of late can confirm.

Question 9 was a two part question that basically confirms they are looking at ways to enhance the functionality of Miis, in the context of children wanting to have their faces appear on heroes. The 2nd part is best dealt with below.

Stock Relevant Issues

As with any stockholder's meeting, there were some interesting tidbits hidden in the procedural items. Q2 advises that a minimum order of stock is required to buy into Nintendo in order to "avoid any confusion with the variety of one stock unit", and although a stock split may allow this to happen, it's not being considered as it may do more harm than good to Nintendo's share price.

Question 5 asks for an update on the old Nintendo HQ, which has been repurposed into the new offices of the Mario Club. Nintendo's testers have the run of the place, including setting up a room closed to all outside wireless signals so they can test hardware and software under a bunch of network conditions.

The last of the questions is Q10, which asks about Nintendo holding their stock. Iwata has asked for patience in the handling of Nintendo's private holdings, as they are still in a transitional state and want to see how "various new trials" (QoL?) affect profits before they decide how to deal with the shares. A side comment in the answer is that the number of shares is slightly lower than the shareholder knew because of the DeNA deal, but "(it) is not a dramatic decrease". This jives with the 1% figure Nintendo stated when the DeNA deal was announced.

"Yep, These Are Our Shareholders"

The second part of question 9 is the one to go to for the biggest head shake, as the shareholder doesn't play video games but wants to wear Nintendo everywhere he goes. An earlier unofficial translation had this question being about Nintendo bread, though Iwata managed to answer the question in a reasonable fashion by mentioning they want to maintain quality control and treat the characters right.

Question 4 may seem crazy - why would someone ask about the retirement of a player's number in a shareholder's meeting? Even if it is Ichiro Suzuki, perhaps the biggest Japanese star in Major League Baseball history, it seems a little odd for the subject to come up. Iwata advised the shareholder to essentially wait until Suzuki retires from the Miami Marlins before worrying about number retirement by the Nintendo-owned Seattle Mariners.

However, it does present an idea for Nintendo - their "In case of bankruptcy, break glass" moment doesn't have to be a Pokemon MMO or whatever, they can put their share of the Seattle Mariners on the market. According to Forbes Magazine's 2015 MLB Team Valuations List, the Mariners are worth US$1.1bn. Even at 54%, that's several hundred million dollars Nintendo could cash out at any time - and since a lot of the appeal with owning a MLB/NBA/NFL team is being in an exclusive club, there could be a bidding war for the team that would drive the final sale price even higher. Probably the only reason they haven't is because the late Hiroshi Yamauchi bought the team to keep it in Seattle in 1992.

There are two prominent people who made their money in Seattle who might want in - Paul Allen (Microsoft founder, owns the Seattle Seahawks) and the owner of the biggest basketball team in Los Angeles... Steve Ballmer. It'd be nice to have an owner who would yell about TOOTBLAN, LOOGYs and #smrtbaseball, and who would definitely try to pull a Ted Turner and manage the team himself. Nintendo could use the proceeds to build new game dev studios, and everyone wins! (Well, except the Mariners.)