VentureBeat has a nice little interview with Iwata talking about the state of the industry and how Microsoft, Sony and even Apple are affecting how Nintendo does business. The most interesting thing to me that came of E3 was seeing that no one is planning a new system. Oh Im sure they are thinking about it, but the industry is in kind of a holding pattern right now as far as hardware goes. It still feels like developers are figuring out how to make games for the current systems which is fine by me. And then of course, developers are starting to push the medium with motion controls and cameras and such.

As you know, a lot of people in this industry believe that the life cycle for consoles should be longer than five years. However, when it comes to the platform cycle, Nintendo has different opinions from the other companies. I think we have a different criteria about when to shift to a new platform. Technology companies would tend to focus on a technology roadmap about when certain technologies will be available at a given cost. Then they lay out their plan to make a certain kind of hardware. That’s how PC makers decide how to make PCs. With Nintendo, developers like [Shigeru] Miyamoto decide.

Wii care about your heartbeat, but not your iPhone, the recession or free games