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Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.

The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.

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Wario Iwata

by Ian Bogost May 3, 2007

categories: Console & PC Games

Kotaku points us to the most recent Nintendo investor's briefing, in which Satoru Iwata makes a number of cranky comments. My favorite is this one, about the US lagging behind the rest of the world in sales expectations:

When I received a report from the U.S. that they sold 1 million Pokémon Diamond & Pearl already, I asked them, "why did you sell only 10,000 Brain Age last week, when Europe sold through 30,000?" This is a typical example of how I communicate with our people in the U.S. If that segment of customers is encouraged to buy a significant amount, we will be able to see the real market change. So, we will need to constantly make efforts to appeal to the new audiences.

Later in the briefing he admits that "we are currently facing product shortages," and there are numerous other questions about hardware supply in the briefing, but Iwata doesn't seem to make the connection between the two. I hear that the new audiences might need a DS or a Wii before they buy software for it.

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