Gabriel Franco Interviews Cammie Dunaway on Latin America, VGC, Piracy - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 19 August 2008 / 15,301 Views
NEX: Cammie Dunaway Interview by Gabriel Franco
Transcribed by Jacob Mazel (click the link below to hear it)
The following is taken from a recorded interview on August 14, 2008 between Gabriel Franco and Cammie Dunaway on August 14, 2008 at the NEX event. The two had chatted the previous night and Cammie agreed to speak on official terms the following evening. Reggie Fils-Aime spoke briefly to Gabriel as well, and the information he provided is used as context in the interview with Cammie as necessary.
VGC: Why did Nintendo decide to hold an event in Latin America?
Cammie Dunaway: The Latin America market is very important to us. We felt like it was a good opportunity for Nintendo and all of our third party publishers to be able to communicate directly with retailers and to be able to communicate with consumers through the (local) media. It was a good experience last year, so this year we decided to make it even bigger….we were very pleased with the media response last year.
VGC: What other events do you have planned for Latin America?
CD: We’ll be making an announcement soon, but I can’t reveal it just yet.
VGC: Regarding sales, how is the Latin American market doing?
CD: Extremely well. Our sales are 50% higher than last year which is number one among the global markets. (In an earlier conversation, Reggie had mentioned that Mexico was the top Latin America market for Nintendo, followed closely by Brazil.)
VGC: Which titles have had the most impact in the region?
CD: Not sure title by title. We had very successful launches of Wii Fit, Mario Kart and Smash Brothers. We have also had success with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon we continue to see titles like Nintendogs and Brain Age do well in Latin America.
(…some talk in Spanish about favorite characters in tournaments for Mario Kart and Smash Brothers. Mario seems to win the popularity content. Big surprise. Some talk about how women show up for the tournaments and the size of the tournaments.)
VGC: What is your message to people who weren’t happy with Nintendo’s E3 conference?
CD: I would say the message is we were disappointed with our performance at E3. There were titles like Wario which we think will be really fun titles that we should have show cased. We were excited that Mr. Miyamoto made the commitment that Pikmin is coming. It would have been nice if we could have said that on stage. But, we think it was a good recognition for us that we care for our core fans, and not just the new people who are now discovering Nintendo.
VGC: You told me last night that you cried (laughter) because people were making fun of you after the conference. Do you feel better now? How do you look back on the conference? What is your position on the conference (reactions)?
CD: My position as head of sales and marketing is that I’m listening to the fans. I’m championing the things they care about. I’m helping to make sure we bring great games to the market place. I’m genuine, I’m new to gaming I’m not pretending to be more than I am. I’m having a blast. I feel similar to people who are just discovering games for the first time. I think for us as an industry, its good that we’re growing. That brings more money to the industry. That makes it attractive for more people to develop more games. We have to embrace the fact that new gamers can be good for everybody. Core gamers should help new gamers to discover their passion for gaming.
VGC: Did you play any kind of games before you came to Nintendo?
CD: My husband and son are avid gamers. My husband grew up playing stuff like network Doom in the mid 1990s. When I came to work for Nintendo, we had a Wii, we had 3 or 4 DSs, a PSP, an Xbox, a PS2. We were an active gaming household, but it was only six months prior to joining Nintendo that I had ever played games at all. I started by playing Wii Sports and then by playing Big Brain Academy and Brain Age on my DS, and then I started playing a little bit of Zelda with my son, and then Pokemon. Sometimes it’s hard to jump into games like Zelda if you don’t have the experience. I had the guidebook in my hand, and my 9 year old son to help me play other times. Core gamers have a critical role in helping people like me learn how to play games…
VGC: Your house had 3-4 DSs?
CD: You absolutely need your own DS (laughter).
VGC: What can you tell us about videogame piracy in Latin America? All the platforms have a lot of pirates it seems... What do you do to prevent piracy?
CD: It’s a very serious problem for Nintendo and for the industry. We have been fighting piracy for over twenty years in Latin America. We have kind of a unified global effort within Nintendo (to fight piracy). There are several things we do to try to fight piracy. First we try and build things into our products to try to prevent counterfeits. It’s good to stop it at the source. We also work very closely with law enforcement in all countries where we do business and manufacturing to try to tackle the problem. This year in Latin America for example we’ve already confiscated about 80,000 counterfeit products. So it’s significant. You have to address it very aggressively. The third thing that we are trying to do is to do more educational efforts. It’s important that consumers understand that if they buy a counterfeit product the quality is likely to not be as good. There won’t be any service after the sales if they have any issues. But I think we have to educate people too that when they buy counterfeit products, they are really hurting the very people who create the games that they love, and hurting the industry. Products that are counterfeited also avoid taxes and duties. People may not realize that counterfeiting products can hurt them in the long run.
VGC: How many units do you think the Wii will sell in 2008 in the Americas? You have about 13m units sold so far in the Americas.
CD: In the Americas market, we’re not quite at 13m but we’re pretty close. I think we’re at 12.6m at the last NPD. (Context Note: This interview was conducted August 14, before NPD data was likely accessible to Cammie, since she was at NEX and meeting with local media well into the night. Therefore, Cammie most likely would have been citing NPD data through June for the USA and Canada, plus Nintendo’s sell through estimates for Latin America. Reggie told Gabriel in a brief chat during a photo-op that Nintendo sees 85% of ‘Americas’ sales in the USA, which fits in well with the 12.6m figure quoted here given that NPD had Wii at 10.85m or so through June in the USA . It also makes sense since Wii is in a near perpetual sell out and since figures on page 13 of the link on Nintendo's IR site say Nintendo had shipped 13.11m Wiis to the Americas through June 30, 2008 . The figures Gabriel cites from VGC are for the week ending August 2, 2008 ). We increased capacity this year to 2.4m units. I think we’ll sell every unit we can get out there. What we find in the Americas is that the product never stays on shelves for more than a few hours. So there’s a lot of demand out there. Also for products like Wii Fit, (strong) sales are opening up entirely new audiences for the Wii.
VGC: According to my site (Vgchartz) Wii is at over 30m units worldwide…
CD: NPD? Oh the Chartz. I know sometimes it is 10%, 20% different than NPD.
VGC: Well we have weekly data NPD is only through June…Wii is at 46.9% of the market right now. How do you feel about that?
CD: I feel like there is another…54% of the market we can get (laughs).
VGC: Is Nintendo planning another console?
CD: What Nintendo believes is we can never stop innovating. As soon as we launch a piece of hardware, we have a team working on what the next generation is going to be. At the point where we feel like we are out of surprises on the current generation, we’ll be ready with the next one.
VGC: I hear Wii Music is the last idea from Miyamoto for the Wii. Is that true?
CD: I had understood Miyamoto to say when he first proposed the Wii he had three core ideas. Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Music. So Wii Music is the last of that original proposition. But you know Mr. Miyamoto always has some tricks up his sleeve.
(inaudible Miyamoto praise…)
VGC: What’s it like to be a woman in your field? What advice would you tell young women who want to be like you?
CD: I would say first you have to find something you love to do. You cant be successful if you don’t enjoy every day at work. I’ve worked on Doritios, Cheetos, Yahoo, and Nintendo, these are all brands I feel really excited about. The second thing is always to try to give more than what is expected of you. Always speak up and share your ideas. Be courageous. That’s how you get the job done and make a difference.
VGC: We'd like to thank Cammie Dunaway for agreeing to this interview. We hope to have more interviews in the near future.
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Para los amigos en Habla hispana la entrevista en español la pueden leer aqui:
http://www.redondo.ws/tiempo/?p=2060
@ale666: Yes, my country is in a "not that good" situation, economically speaking. BUT I think that there's no excuse to have a platform that costs less than your rival's but in one country it is completely different. What I can see here is that we like to spend money in trivialities, yes, that's true. If we can, we pay absurd taxes just to get what we want, and pay for it in 12 months of hard work, that includes TV sets, consoles, games, accessories, DVD players and etc. And even then, there's people who buy only original games, specially the Microsoft ones, because of the distribution that they do. The other get the games via direct importation from USA or the grey market. What I'm trying to say is that Nintendo can't just blame piracy and one little market, because they don't even try to do the job. And what makes me O_O is the fact that even then, we are the second place in Latin America. Awesome achievement! =)
Of course, I know that is impossible to erradicate piracy completely (if there's a way to do it), and that even on the big markets there's people who mods and downloads their "own burned games", but with the current situation, on my country (I'm talking specifically about it), it's impossible to even combat it if Nintendo don't do a little effort at least.
The audio link works right? If anyone can translate Spanish you might get some extra insight from listening beyond the English transcript posted above.
if you want to see the kind of stuff that made her sad, look at what the readers of a few other sites were posting
She cried because people was very mean to her.
Nice interview...so Cammie is a normal person...but she cried? She must really care about the fan(boy)s lol.
@Daileon
I can understand the situation your country has to put up with but my point was that people who want to pirate games will do it regardless of any cheaper price tag. I understand you as in the older days my country was in a very similar situation and people pirated but over the years my country's economy has improved drastically and people still pirate. Not everyone like before but they still do it cause they want to. I'm sorry to say that your problem is your country's economy not console prices, no offence of course.
Nice.
Keep on with articles like these.
Wow el gefe congratulations my friend...
wait the only reason i never read this was because i had no idea who Gabriel Franco was... dude you the man! also cool that they know about vgchartz
I see some people are using this opportunity to put a positive spin on pirating/stealing. NO DICE! However you spin it, it's still pirating/stealing. I'm not saying Nintendo, Sony, MS and the lawmakers involved couldn't and shouldn't help out, but it's still a decision we all make.
Anyways, you rock as usual elgefe. You're so nice, I thought I'd say it twice!!!
Bien hecho, te mereces un 10+
This is just awesome - great interview.
Great job, elgefe.
A very good interview. With some important quewtions asked, what more could you want.
@ale666: Nice. You would pay the prices that I HAVE TO PAY HERE? Here, where the average paycheck is of about US$ 253 per month? So I can easily see why the piracy is that big in my country.
genial entrevista! =D I hope that we could see a nintendo representation in mexico like we had in the 90's ^^
Some people need to understand that whatever price you put on your product individuals who want to pirate games will do so anyway since free is always cheaper than any price tag. A price war against piracy will always be a lost battle so might as well make a profit on whatever you can.
Good job Gabriel ;)
Felicitaciones Gabriel....
Now Vgchartz new name is the Chartz :D
Holy!! This story is being picked up by other sites now! Well, one anyway - Edge Online (formerly nextgen)
http://www.edge-online.com/news/nintendo-%E2%80%9Cdisappointed%E2%80%9D-with-its-e3-performance
But as that's an industry site I can only imagine other sites will pull from here.
Congrats Gabriel and VGChartz for another scoop!
The interview was great, I told you guys Cammie is really a nice person but nooooo, Nintendo's E3 confirence was crappy so lets blame her for it!! :(
The pics are nice too, I want to meet Reggie and take a pic with him :)
Love the exclusive interviews! Tons of value here at VGChartz.
She isn't too bad after all. Nice Interview.
@Soriku
54% (Actually 53.1%) should of been obvious - she gave a strait answer.
Nintendomination hasn't even begun.
That's cool you got to meet those two, good info, if anything I learned more about the person than Nintendo, but that's ok. ^_^
You had some pretty hard hitting questions for your first interview! I liked that.
"VGC: You told me last night that you cried (laughter) because people were making fun of you at the conference. "
That's some good stuff right there LOL.
By the way, the girl in the Pic with Cammie is my wife!
Thanks everybody for your positive comments.
now I know how you look like behind that mask - a true coming out.
Muy bueno!
Great job and its a nice interview.
wow, great job here....nice pictures. Lovely ladies :) bastard. Hope you have some nice write ups on some of the games you got to play, if you haven't already.
Great job, Mr. Franco. I really like Cammie, too bad she got upset about the E3 reaction. One thing she will have to learn about the game industry...no matter what you do, there will always be a segment of the gaming community who will whine, moan, and lash out in the most under-handed of ways.
That was nice interview... and yes, elgefe your so lucky to meet Reggie
They know about VGChartz. Sweet. Nice interview btw...
Nintendo's E3 conference was indeed weak and I'm really happy that Cammie acknowledged it. That means they listen to what we have to say. Although, that being said, I don't think Cammie deserved to be ripped apart like she was after E3. People were pretty much shooting the messenger.
I was going to ask who Gabriel was.... nice one 'gefe.
At least she acknowledged that their E3 wasn't good :P
they need to make money, i doubt they'll cut prices whilst there managing to sell every unit they produce at the current price
@Daileon - I´m from Brazil and so agree with you. I have in fact seen places where the Wii costs more than the PS3.
@hanafuda
basically don't say a bunch of bad stuff about them
She went some way to redeem herself after E3.
What does, 'disparaging' mean?
@spdk1: Yes, just by comparison, Microsoft distributes the X360 here, and it's a decent support (a lot better than Nintendo crappy distribution and representation), the Premium SKUs, bundled with 3 games and 1 faceplate, the DVD controller and a cap costs US$ 1200, and the games published by Microsoft costs US$ 100... Still very abusive prices but A LOT better than Nintendo does here, and that just tells me that the representation don't get better because Nintendo don't want, they prefer to just blame the piracy than move along...
Good interview, lol chartz!!!. Shes right Pikmin should have been announced on stage, and also some Conduit footage and announcment of Red Steel 2 would have been nice..
Good interview and it is a shame people dogged her so badly.
When she addresses piracy she says all the right things except the price, people that make 300 dollars a month will always opt to pay 10 dollars for a game instead of 50-60 dollars (and legal games in some of those countries are way higher than 50-60)
Very nice read... Also........ So lucky to have met Reggie! >_> Jealous
@Daileon
wow! I had no idea that there was 400% markup going on....holy CRAP
Nice to see Brazil close to Mexico, since the Wii is sold here for about US$ 1250,00 and the games cost US$ 158,25 and US$ 348,00 for Guitar Hero III (that's correct, that is the price that we pay here if we want to buy it legally)... And, of course, just a little SHY list of games is available to buy.
Nice to see that they want to combat piracy here too. Cammie, if you are hearing to this, let me tell you a thing: I'm from Brazil and know that, don't matter how you combat it "in the source", you will never erradicate piracy here with these prices. We are a relatively poor people, so the logic would be that we should pay LESS than America for the games at least, just like we pay less for DVD movies, for example (US$ 20~25 for recent releases).
Thanks for the attention =).
Gabriel Franco is totally the King of VGChartz.
And I called him as the best member here, in my sig, MONTHS AGO!
I'm psychic.
a nice read
a nice read
Here's to you, Mrs. Dunaway.
Wow that's awesome. Great interview. And I've been telling you guys these gaming corporations like Nintendo keep up with this site. They know about it and they read it faithfully. They understand it gives and in the ballpark estimate of what the sales of their games are and they are really just as curious as we are. Most probably don't take it as fact but most do probably take it as a sign of what's going on.
great interview Gabe!
Yes the Nintendo E3-Show was bad. But I think that camie has performed nice there as identifikation-person for the casuals. But it would be better when there would be a such a person for the core too.
Great job, Source and elgefe2.
[i](inaudible Miyamoto praise…)[/i]
I laughed.
Look at elgefe hob-nobbing with the elite. I bet you think you're better than the rest of us, don't you? ;)
Great work folks. It's great that VGChartz was at NEX when you don't hear much about it from big places like IGN.
Aware of VGchartz. That's a good sign.
great job elgefe, you asked some good questions, cant believe you met reggie thats cool.
cammy was good too, she is growing on me after E3.
cool,great job
Nice read, she seems really, its a shame those dogs tore her apart at E3, and some great questions thanks Gabriel
