Like I said though what's he supposed to say? 

"We had no choice but to make smartphone games because we don't have full confidence in our ability to succeed with traditional gaming devices?"

He can't say that, even if everyone knows he's thinking it. 

I'm not thinking it.

You or I are not running a multi-billion dollar company though. 

He has to say this, it's part of his job description to put a brave face/positive spin on any type of situation. 

You ask the Blackberry CEO about how things are going and he'll talk about all things being raindrops and rainbows and lollipops in Blackberry land. Of course they weren't forced to adopt the Android ecosystem and apps. They "chose" it. Sure, sure. That's just the job of a president. 

So where's the surprise here?  

Everything you've said in this thread about Iwata's comments is that they were indeed cornered which has you making him out to be a liar.  In my world, until you can prove that what someone said is untrue, it's the truth.  

May I interject what I think was Iwata's whole thinking about mobile?  Something like:

"With the way Nintendo is, we are driving towards a new model not only in our business, but in our business culture.  Recently, Nintendo has become less restricted about new ideas, we are not the old ways of thinking and because we are making a move towards the future of Nintendo, we have looked at our priority products and are confident that it will continue to be successful.  With this said, we cannot overlook other opportunities.  The mobile field is something not to be overlooked.  Many people now own smart phones and Nintendo understands this is not just a fad.  It is another opportunity to have our products in the hands of the people.  We believe that the Nintendo brand is in itself a compelling product, so we see this as a platform not just for a entry for the sake of entry.  Nintendo has a history of quality and I believe we will continue this history of quality going forward into this market."

I tried my best Iwata impersonation, what do you think?  Load of bs or just near the Iwata ballpark?

You seem to be under the impression Nintendo said they'd never develop mobiles games, but they've never said such a thing. Like most things Nintendo, the original qoutes are misinterpreted and people read what they want to read. What they said is they would not make console games are they are for mobile (it's in the details and the precise yet ambigious wordings of Iwata). Meaning it's exactly as Iwata said during the presentation adn QA, their mobile games will be built for mobile devices (no direct ports). Also, I'm pretty sure their deals with IBM cost more than DeNA.

"...and as I said before, we feel that simply releasing our games just as they are on smart devices would not provide the best entertainment for smart devices, so we are not going to take any approach of this nature."...."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." - Iwata from Jan 2014.

[“Our games such as Mario and Zelda are designed for our game machines so if we transfer them into smartphones as they are, customers won’t be satisfied,” said Iwata. “If customers aren’t satisfied with the experience, it will decrease the value of our content.”

No games transfered onto smartphones from game machines have continuously generated tens or hundreds of billions of yen over a longer term period, Iwata said."] - bloomberg

As a few poeple have said, Nintendo most likely had been thinking about doing something on mobile for a long time now. Pitches and talks can happen for month if not years, before deals are signed. The fact that they were letting DeNA do their pitch means they were considering mobile, atleast since that time. Just like the Wii-mote gyration pitch going back to 2001. Iwata, himself, has been talking about for years(well, atleast over a year.

Also, $200m is chump change compared to how much invesments in consoles cost. The IBM-Nintendo Gamecube deal alone was a billion (and add inflation to that).

I am in fact God. And since you can't disprove it, it must be true.

Call it "cornered" or simply call it pressure...fact is Nintendo is fighting mobile for kids' attention and that hurts their bread & butter HH biz (nevermind home console) which will only get worse over time.

Just as Nintendo hit the reset button on pushing compute power, they get to do it again but this time on gameplay. With the expected convergence of NX or "fusion", that becomes Nintendo's ultimate experience (as in, complex game play with buttons, etc). With mobile, Nintendo can finally tap into capacitive screens. which should prepare them to include in the NX. Mobile will serve as the introductory platform for kids, essentially planting the seeds so they will desire Nintendo products when they hit a certain age (7+).

From what we know, it seems like this ought to be that acquisition. The price is right. Last January during the Q&A Iwata was asked, "Just focusing on the fourth quarter (January-March 2014), [R&D expenses] will increase about 80% compared with the same period last fiscal year. Do you expect to continue to see similar expenses next fiscal year, or is it a temporary increase?" He answered, "We decided to increase our forecasted expenses this fiscal year in order to tackle some of the areas that we feel we are not strong at, and this is an investment toward the future." That aligns with DeNA helping them develop their new online network, and it would of course be a one-time expense toward that aim.

I can't imagine what else that acquisition could have been, although of course it's possible they invested over $100 million in another company within the past year. Something that makes me suspicious is the mobile app Nintendo released last May in partnership with Dokomo. I don't know if Dokomo and DeNA are competitors, but if they are that would seem weird to me.

There are some slight changes in the rhetoric since last year -- in 2014 the goal of Nintendo's mobile apps was not to generate profit in the short-term, but to "create consumer awareness." Now we have DeNA running around bragging about how much money they're going to be swimming in. The gist of it (at least from Nintendo) is the same though. Iwata basically announced that Nintendo would be making mobile games last January, he just thickly sugar-coated the message. Literally saying that he set Nintendo developers with the task of creating a mobile app that would promote their other products, that would be entertaining enough to get people hooked on opening it daily, and that he didn't explicitly tell them not to make it a game.

The truth won't make it a fact.  Besides, I don't believe in you.  

It's good to keep a positive attitude.  

Nintendo can screw up the next console too but it doesn't mean they had to make this move.  It's all about a viable opportunity to make some more money.  Besides, Iwata has already admitted that the Wii U hasn't sold well.  What's is being questioned here?