Nintendo Quality of Life unit to be separate from console business

Nintendo has confirmed its new Quality of Life business will be spearheaded by a new team, separate from its console business unit.

In a new message to investors, president Satoru Iwata gave us our first bit of information regarding Nintendo's Quality of Life unit since its brief introduction at a January investor meeting.

"As the business environment around us has shifted with the times, we have decided to redefine entertainment as something that improves people's quality of life ('QOL') in enjoyable ways and expand our business areas. What Nintendo will try to achieve in the next 10 years is a platform business that improves people's QOL in enjoyable ways," he said.

Iwata went on to say that Nintendo will retain its "core focus" on dedicated video game platforms, and will spin the QOL team off as a separate unit to existing console business.

"With a platform business that improves people's QOL in enjoyable ways, we will attempt to establish a new business area apart from our dedicated video game business," he said.

"We have set 'health' as the theme for our first step and we will try to use our strength as an entertainment company to create unique approaches that expand this business. Through our new endeavors with the QOL-improving platform, we strive to further promote our existing strategy of expanding our user base, create an environment in which more people are conscious about their health and in turn expand Nintendo's overall user base."

It doesn't sound terribly different to Nintendo's past activities with the enormously popular Wii Fit and aborted Vitality Sensor endeavour. Iwata described the new business as a natural extension of its entertainment business - since the goal of entertainment is to improve QOL by putting a smile on people's faces.

"What has remained the same from the past is that we have always tried to create something new from materials and technologies available at that time, to position entertainment as our core business and to improve people's QOL in enjoyable ways. We will continue to value self-innovation in line with the times and aim for growth," Iwata said.

Thanks, GameInformer.