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Examples of the fi rst characteristics were accounts from President Iwata
of how the decisions of the initial directions of the Wii project were guided
and preceded by conversations with members of the boards about what
constituted the important ontological nature of the video game as enter-
tainment. This interpretative discussion was described as an ef ort that
focused on the entertainment experience, putting technology in second
place (Gamespy 2004).
An example of the second characteristic was how the diversity of the
senior management team provided a variety of views in the expansion strat-
egy. In the ef ort to expand the market to senior players, the diversity of the
team provided important input in interpreting the direction for reaching
the more expanded demographic of consumers.
Nintendo's organizational structure of R&D was also changed in 2003
to a system in which greater emphases were given to an interpretational
and conversational process dominated by the view of the game designers.
Before the organizational restructuring, greater emphasis had been given to
the competition between the dif erent R&D departments, each searching
for the approval from former president Yamauchi. After the organizational
restructuring, several of the game software resources were unifi ed under a
common new division (Entertainment Analysis and Development [EAD])
with Shigeru Miyamoto as general manager.
DEVELOPMENT PROCESS OF THE NINTENDO WII
The development process of Nintendo Wii was initiated in 2003, with a
specifi c team devoted to the project in 2004. 5 The early innovation process
was characterized by an ef ort to have a conversation and exchange ideas
and concepts, while at the same time trying to avoid adopting existing engi-
neering deign heuristics with their bias towards incremental improvement
of existing performance attributes.
In the early stage of the project, setting a direction of which of the estab-
lished product performance attributes the company should not pursue was
important in forcing the project team away from existing development heu-
ristics. The Wii project was preceded by recurrent discussions among the
expert group of game designers and engineers focusing on the basic nature
of entertainment and the market. Rather than setting clear end goals for
the development project in terms of traditional product attributes, President
Iwata was setting directions for the project that deliberately focused on con-
cept discussion and explorative projects in areas seen as promising for the
expansion of the market. These early project conversations were not tech-
nology oriented, but focused on the broader underlying issue of the enter-
tainment experience of games: according to Shigeru Miyamoto, “we talked
about basic concept and goals, not the technical specifi cations of the con-
sole” (BusinessWeek 2006). The direction was not focused on the preferences
 
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