Gamespot interviews Nintendo's Satoru Iwata: Iwata says that there were 10 million Virtual Console game downloads by the end of December last year. (Which means there is more now). He also talks briefly about the Wii shortage in US now.

While Nintendo's 2007 success now seems like a foregone conclusion, it wasn't always so. In 2005, Electronic Entertainment Expo attendees who'd been wowed by the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 unveilings left Nintendo's press conference shaking their heads after being shown a nonfunctional mock-up of a tiny console code-named "Revolution." When that device was renamed the "Wii" in 2006, doubt became incredulity--until Nintendo showed off the console's motion-sensing remote at an E3 event that was more spiritual revival than press conference.

quote Satoru Iwata

It's not that the opinion of those with different perspectives weren't convincing for us. With each suggestion, we thought through many things, but with each step along the way, we could feel the market changing bit by bit, and that is why we were able to keep going. Hearing stories about customers who seemed like they'd never touch a game scouring store shelves for a copy of Brain Age is what encouraged us.

Little reactions like that show up before the actual sales numbers start rolling in. Still, we didn't know whether a major shift in those numbers would take months or years to achieve. I worked under the assumption that if five years went by and the world didn't change, I could kiss my job good-bye. [Chuckles.]

StarJet via gamespot.com »