The evolution of Nintendo: A gaming great's fight to stay relevant

The most recent blow to the company came this month with news of a "steep downward revision" to the company's year end financial forecast. In other words, Nintendo sold a lot less, and made a lot less, than they originally thought they would in the past year.

The situation is so dire that company president Satoru Iwata kicked off his quarterly management meeting by telling analysts and attendees not what the company will be doing, but what it won't be doing.

Nintendo still believes in video games on dedicated consoles, Iwata said.

"We therefore believe that dedicated video game platforms which integrate hardware and software will remain our core business," he said. "Naturally, we are moving ahead with research and development efforts for future hardware as we have done before and we are not planning to give up our own hardware systems and shift our axis toward other platforms."

Nintendo is a survivor, Iwata explained. It's a company that over its 125 year history evolved from card company, to toy company, to electronic toy company to a video game company.

But always, Iwata said, at its core, Nintendo has been a company that has tried to "create something new from materials and technologies available at that time and to position entertainment as our core business."

Iwata reminded those present that Nintendo has always been an innovator and a collaborator.

"Given this background, in expanding our dedicated video game platforms in the future," Iwata said, "we hope to firmly decide what aspects from the past should be kept and what should be dramatically changed in order to leverage our core competency."

Iwata made it clear in his presentation that if nothing else, the future of Nintendo will be an interesting one as it continues to evolve and innovate.

We've created this StoryStream to help trace that evolution.