Nintendo to Open New R&D Facility
Company buys big patch of land in Kyoto.
US, February 10, 2009 - Recent layoff warnings and lowered earnings estimates have lead some to doubt the old belief that video games are recession-proof. Okay, how about this one then? Nintendo is recession-proof.
The Big N is getting even bigger. Nikkei reports today that the company has completed purchase on 40,000 square meters of land in its current home town of Kyoto. The purchase, made late last year, cost the company 12.8 billion yen (at current exchange rates, about $141 million).
Nintendo plans to build an R&D facility on the new land for game software and hardware development. The Nikkei report suggests that Nintendo is also looking into the possibility of improving efficiency by placing its R&D in one location. Currently, the company operates two main offices in Kyoto, its main office near the newly purchased land, and an older office that was its headquarters until the year 2000.
---- First things that come to mind, Flying machines, Virtual Reality testing ground and Terminator
“When we make some new announcement and if there is no positive initial reaction from the market, I try to think of it as a good sign because that can be interpreted as people reacting to something groundbreaking. ...if the employees were always minding themselves to do whatever the market is requiring at any moment, and if they were always focusing on something we can sell right now for the short term, it would be very limiting. We are trying to think outside the box.” - Satoru Iwata - This is why corporate multinationals will never truly understand, or risk doing, what Nintendo does.
